Official Freep Film Fest guide in today’s paper!

About the festival

There’s a little something for everyone at the sixth annual About 100 events Wednesday through April 14, centered in
Freep Film Festival, which arrives this week. Beginning with downtown and Midtown Detroit, with some outlying locations.
Wednesday’s opening night screening of “Boy Howdy! The Story Most tickets $10 advance, $12 the day of show; festival passes
of Creem Magazine” — the story of the raucous Detroit­born start at $175. freepfilmfestival.com and 313­222­2072 
rock ’n’ roll magazine — and continuing through April 14, the
festival will be hosting films, discussions, parties, music and More festival coverage
more. Most screenings will feature related events, including
❚
Complete guide to all films and events. Special section inside
Q&As, performances and appearances by directors, athletes and
musicians. The festival’s focus is documentaries, especially those ❚
In Opinion: “Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win” recounts Detroit
with strong connections to Detroit and Michigan. Nearly 40 lawyer’s fight against DPD’s S.T.R.E.S.S. unit. Nancy Kaffer, 21A
feature films will be making their world or regional premieres. 
❚
In Entertainment+Travel: Kronos Quartet will perform live at
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Buy your tickets and more at freepfilmfestival.com DIA as part of “A Thousand Thoughts” live documentary. 2E

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FREEP.COM E2 PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

ncaafinalfour TEXAS  TECH  61,  MICHIGAN  STATE  51

Mayor’s
GREEN
Texas Tech’s
suffocating
defense too much
for Michigan State
support
raises
DAZED
as Spartans are
defeated in the
national  semifinals
MORE  IN  SPORTS, 1C
questions
Program run by woman with
BUSINESS, 1B
ties to Duggan got grants
New hotels find Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford
USA TODAY NETWORK
Detroit Free Press

room downtown
in building boom A charitable program run by a woman with
close ties to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan re­
Only a decade ago, hoteliers ceived $358,000 in city grants and also bene­
struggled to fill their empty fited from a fundraising campaign that a top
rooms. Now, they struggle city official spearheaded at the mayor’s direc­
to keep up with the demand. tion, the Free Press has learned.
An email obtained by a Freedom of Infor­
mation  Act  request  shows  that  Duggan  or­
dered the city’s chief development officer to
raise money for Make Your Date, which is a
nonprofit  medical  organization  according  to
state  and  federal  records,  where  Dr.  Sonia
Hassan serves as president and director.
Hassan was seen late last year arriving af­
Make change ter hours at the same suburban residence as
Duggan in an edited surveillance video taken
happen. by a private investigator. She was handpicked
by the mayor to lead Detroit’s efforts to reduce
USA TODAY NETWORK’s A preterm births in Detroit. 
Community Thrives initiative
turns community building See PROGRAM, Page 14A
ideas into reality. Find a
project in Michigan and help
make it happen. Your donation
could help a Michigan
nonprofit receive a $100,000
grant. Visit usatoday.com/ Michigan State fans react to the Spartans’ performance in the Final Four national semifinal game Pot­infused edibles
against Texas Tech at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday. JUNFU HAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS
ACommunityThrives.
are ready to flood
Spirited Spartans fans find their way from across the Michigan market
Inside today’s Free Press
❚
House Envy ............................1G globe to Minneapolis to cheer their team in the tourney Kathleen Gray Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
❚
Movies.....................................8E
❚
Obituaries .....................24­28A
Tresa Baldas In  a  growing  number  of  spic­and­span
❚
Puzzles ...............................2­3H Detroit Free Press kitchens  across  Michigan,  blueberries  and
USA TODAY NETWORK
espresso beans are being coated in chocolate,
brightly  colored  gummies  are  being  poured
Weather On the Jumbotron at the Breslin Center, into molds and marshmallows, cherries and
there’s only one thing that excites Spartan crushed cookies are being added to chocolate
High 69° ❚
Low 55°
basketball fans more than a dunk or a 3­ bars.
Some rain. Forecast, 2A
pointer: “Dancing Jan,” a retired Michigan But  these  are  not  quite  the  Willy  Wonka
State University professor who dazzles the factories of childhood dreams.
crowd  with  her  spunky  moves  during In  addition  to  the  sweet  ingredients,  oils
Sunday $2.00 timeouts. extracted from the cannabis plant also are be­
When  the  petite,  clapping  Spartan ing infused into these products, which are be­
shows up on the big screen in her signa­ coming a staple of medical marijuana dispen­
ture Kelly green blazer and black glasses, saries and will be a core sales item when the
Volume 188 | No. 338 ©2019
the crowd roars. adult recreational market starts selling legal
Home delivery pricing inside
Subscribe: 800­395­3300
So  the  reception  she  got  when  MSU  weed early next year.
Classified: 586­977­7500; Jan Alleman Trumbull, known as “Dancing Jan,” talks with
800­926­8237 See MSU FANS, Page 16A other MSU fans at a pep rally Friday. KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/DFP See POT EDIBLES, Page 17A

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14A ❚ SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Cover story A Free Press investigation
A banner flies over downtown Detroit on Thursday above crowds partying at Opening Day events. The banner was one of three flown over the city, paid for by Mayor Mike Duggan agitator
Robert Carmack. Carmack said the banners cost $1,500 each. In November, Carmack broadcast surveillance video of Duggan on giant screens outside City Hall. JUNFU HAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Continued from Page 1A
The Free Press has not named Hassan in
previous  articles  about  the  surveillance
video, which shows Duggan arriving at that
location on three occasions without his per­
sonal protection team. But the city’s financial
support,  attempted  fundraising  campaign
and  Duggan’s  repeated  promotion  of  Make
Your  Date  raises  ethics  questions  about
whether  the  mayor  used  city  resources  to
benefit Hassan’s program.
The Free Press has been examining Make
Your Date’s operations and funding for sever­
al  months.  As  part  of  its  investigation,  the
newspaper  requested  documentation  of
communications  involving  Hassan,  Duggan
and the mayor’s chief of staff, Alexis Wiley.
City  officials  had  previously  downplayed
Duggan’s  assistance  to  Make  Your  Date  as
typical of the mayor’s support for city­backed
philanthropic  efforts.  But  the  records  ob­
tained  in  late  March  revealed  a  significant
commitment of resources from the develop­
ment office at the mayor’s direction.
Duggan orders fundraising effort
The  fundraising  campaign  Duggan  or­
dered began with an email introduction be­
tween  the  city’s  development  officer  and
Hassan. The email’s subject line was “Make
Your Date Fundraising.”
“I’d  like  to  introduce  you  to  Ryan  Frie­
drichs,” Wiley wrote in the August 2017 email
to Hassan. “He is our chief development offi­
cer  and  the  Mayor  has  tasked  him  with
launching a large scale fundraising effort to
Make Your Date. He’ll be in touch soon!”
The  fundraising  effort  was  eventually
deemed unnecessary, officials stress, but not
before  several  city  staffers  collaborated  on
the campaign. The effort did not result in any
donations.  However,  Make  Your  Date  has
raised more than $1.5 million since its incep­
tion.  scribed as a nonprofit in the contracts, the or­
Duggan has never directly addressed the
allegations of an extramarital affair, insisting
his marriage is a private, personal matter un­
related  to  city  business.  Representatives  of
both Duggan and Hassan refused this week
to answer direct questions about the nature
of their relationship.  Furthermore, Make Your Date’s own web­
“Dr. Hassan does not comment about per­
sonal matters,” spokesman Bill Nowling said
in a statement.
Wiley  referenced  a  previous  statement
from the mayor’s office that declined to char­
acterize Duggan’s relationship with Hassan.
“This was addressed last November and we
made clear then that there would be no fur­
ther comment,” Wiley wrote in an email.
In addition, the mayor’s office vehemently
denied the city ever provided money directly
to  the  Make  Your  Date  nonprofit.  The  city
contends Make Your Date is administered as
a Wayne  State  University  program,  senti­
Program’s support
raising questions
Dr. Sonia Hassan sits to the left of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan at the 2015 fundraising
gala at MGM Grand Detroit for Hassan’s Make Your Date program. MAKEYOURDATE.ORG
ments echoed by university officials.  City commits resources to raise funds
“All funding went solely to the institution
of Wayne State University,” Wiley wrote in an
email.
But contracts that govern the city grants
all name Wayne State and Make Your Date as
recipients. While Make Your Date is not de­
ganization  is  registered  as  a  nonprofit  with
the  state  and  the  Internal  Revenue  Service.
Donors at the 2017 annual gala were directed
to  make  their  checks  payable  to  Make  Your
Date  Detroit,  “a  501(c)(3)  organization,”
which is the IRS designation for a nonprofit.
site  describes  its  purpose  as:  “The  Wayne
State University School of Medicine is raising
funds to support Make Your Date Detroit, a
free program to help pregnant women ensure
a safe  delivery.  Mothers­to­be  can  take  ad­
vantage  of  this  powerful  and  free  nonprofit
program, offered through the City of Detroit,
for assistance in delivering healthy full­term
babies on or after their due date.”
Duggan wasn’t just supportive of an effort
to  tackle  preterm  births  —  he  approached
Wayne State about creating a program to ad­
dress  it,  according  to  a  statement  from  the
mayor’s office.  The  controversy  involving  Hassan  began
After  Wiley  sent  that  email  to  Hassan  in
2017, Friedrichs wrote to the doctor, sending
an email to her at 10:36 p.m. that committed
“all three of our lead Development Officers to
the  discussion”  and  said  the  fundraising
campaign would focus on public and philan­
thropic grants and corporate donations.
Friedrichs, who oversees the Office of De­
velopment  and  Grants,  offered  to  host  a
meeting to discuss the effort in the mayor’s
office.
“I look forward to the discussion and to be­
ing an ally for your work however I am able,”
Friedrichs wrote to Hassan.
Ultimately,  the  city’s  fundraising  efforts
for Make Your Date did not raise any money.
City workers met with Wayne State’s philan­
thropy staff, made a number of preliminary
inquiries  and  provided  “concept  papers”  to
the Skillman Foundation and the Children’s
Hospital of Michigan Foundation, Wiley said.
“After those initial meetings, Wayne State
philanthropy  staff  concluded  they  already
had  strong  relationships  with  the  potential
funders and did not need (the city) to solicit
funds for Make Your Date,” Wiley said.
in  November  when  Detroit  businessman
Robert  Carmack  broadcast  the  surveillance
video  of  Duggan  on  giant  screens  outside
City Hall, creating a public spectacle during
rush hour. Carmack, who is embroiled in vari­
ous  disputes  with  the  city,  suggested  the
video showed the mayor having an affair. Af­
ter the video aired, Duggan and his wife, Lori
Maher,  issued  a  statement  defending  their
marriage.  Speculation  about  an  affair  also
was  referenced  in  an  open  records  lawsuit
government agitator Robert Davis filed in De­
cember,  against  Wayne  State  and  Hassan.
The  Free  Press  has  not  independently  cor­
roborated  the  allegations  suggested  in  the
video.
On Thursday, three planes towing banners
referencing  Duggan  and  Hassan  flew  over
downtown,  catching  the  eyes  of  thousands
partying during Tigers’ Opening Day events.
At least one of the banners, which Carmack
said  cost  $1,500  each,  named  Hassan,  mis­
spelling her name, and continuing in cheeky
language: “Dr Hussan marry me? Love Mayor
Duggan” followed in red letters by, “Oh I for­
got I’m married”
City fundraising rare
Government  ethics  experts  said  it  is  un­
common  for  cities  to  raise  money  for  non­
profit organizations and questioned whether
Detroit’s  fundraising  effort  for  Make  Your
Date was offered to other nonprofit groups.
“It’s  not  at  all  unusual  for  cities  to  make
grants  or  write  contracts  for  nonprofits,
that’s  done  all  the  time,”  said  University  of
Southern California professor Terry Cooper,
who authored the book “The Responsible Ad­
ministrator:  An  Approach  to  Ethics  for  the
Administrative Role.” But “to raise money for
a nonprofit, that’s quite unusual. It seems to
me there are several dimensions to this be­
yond a conflict of interest.”
Hui Chen, the former compliance counsel
expert at the U.S. Department of Justice, said
that all local nonprofits aligned with the may­
or’s mission to reduce preterm birth should
have  been  given  the  opportunity  to  benefit
from a city­staffed fundraising campaign.
“Every  organization  that’s  got  a  mission
that’s aligned with your objective, not just a
single  organization,”  Chen  said.  “You  don’t
just have a private conversation with one sin­
gle organization, ‘We’re going to help you.’
“My stance is, to really do things in a fair
and  transparent  way  for  a  public  organiza­
tion, if you want to offer this kind of help, of­
fer it to everybody.”
Detroit’s  decision  to  assign  city  workers
for nonprofit fundraising is not common, said
Elizabeth Boris, a fellow at the Urban Insti­
tute  and  co­editor  of  the  book,  “Nonprofits
and  Government:  Collaboration  and  Con­
flict.”
Continued on next page

Cover story A Free Press investigation
Continued from previous page
“I would say that I don’t know of other in­
stances, which is not to say that they don’t
exist,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it’s  probably
rare,” said Boris, founding director of the in­
stitute’s  Center  on  Nonprofits  and  Philan­
thropy  and  former  founding  director  of  the
Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research
Fund.
Like  Chen,  Boris  questioned  the  city’s
process for deciding to raise money for Make
Your Date.
“Did they do campaigns for other organi­
zations?” Boris said. “Or is there some proc­
ess by which they raise money and dole it out
and  this  one  is  an  aberrant  case?  I  guess
those are the things I look for.”
A state directory of maternal infant health
programs lists about a dozen agencies in De­
troit.
Officials won’t talk; email withheld
The  mayor’s  office  would  not  make  Frie­
drichs  available  for  an  interview  about  the
Make Your Date fundraising campaign. It of­
fered only to respond to written questions for
Friedrichs, who is married to Michigan Sec­
retary of State Jocelyn Benson and has a city
salary of $181,983. The Free Press declined to
submit detailed written questions without an
opportunity to interview Friedrichs.
“We see no reason for Mr. Friedrichs to do
a wide­ranging interview where he would be
responding  to  various  detailed  financial
questions only from memory, instead of hav­
ing (office) staff assemble the full and accu­
rate  information  for  your  questions,”  Wiley
wrote in an email.
Friedrichs’ office of more than 20 employ­
ees is responsible for finding grants and other
sources of revenue to support the city’s prior­
ities. Make Your Date was among 41 priorities
listed  in  a  2018  annual  report  summarizing
the work of Friedrichs’ office. The priorities
list is a mix of general city initiatives, such as
recycling, brotherhood, sustainable housing,
and the Motor City Makeover, as well as some
specific  groups,  such  as  professional  devel­
opment for the Detroit Public Schools Com­
munity District.  was  nothing  wrong  with  the  operation  and
The annual report indicates the Office of
Development and Grants completed work on
its  Make  Your  Date  efforts  on  Feb.  6,  2018,
with at least “some level of ODG support.”  Wayne  State  Vice  President  and  General
The city’s fundraising campaign for Make
Your Date followed a series of grants that the
city directed to the program from 2015 to 2017.
The money came from Detroit’s allocation of
state  money  for  maternal  and  child  health
programs.
Make Your Date, as an integral part of the
city’s  plan  to  reduce  preterm  birth,  is  de­
signed to help pregnant women deliver full­
term  babies.  The  organization  holds  preg­
nancy education classes and says it connects
women  to  doctors  and  midwives,  and  pro­
vides other medical services.
A program  representative  told  the  Free
Press that Make Your Date has served more
than 8,000 Detroit women. Although Hassan
would not discuss program services with the
Free  Press,  Wayne  State  provided  a  sample
from 2017 that showed 1,715 women were ser­
viced in three key areas — educational ses­
sions,  cervical  length  screenings  and  group
prenatal care.
The  city  did  not  disclose  its  fundraising
campaign for Make Your Date when the Free
Press asked for information in December. In
response to written questions about the city’s
and the mayor’s relationship with Make Your
Date — and specifically asked then whether
city staff helped raise money — city spokes­
man John Roach provided the following writ­
ten response:
“The mayor volunteered to serve as hon­
orary chair of Make Your Date’s annual fund­
raiser, as he has done for many philanthropic
events and the city of Detroit has been gener­
ally supportive of Make Your Date’s fundrais­
ing  efforts  as  we  have  done  for  a  variety  of
philanthropic efforts.”
The  Free  Press  obtained  the  emails  be­
tween Wiley and Hassan last month through
a supplemental response to a Freedom of In­
formation Act request for their communica­
tions.
The  messages  from  the  city  officials  to
Hassan were not included in the city’s initial
395­page  response,  which  had  been  re­
viewed by the law department. Instead, the
initial FOIA response included a single email
between Wiley, Hassan and Friedrichs with a
message body that read, “Attachment is cor­
rupted.” After the Free Press questioned the
“corrupted” notation on the attachment, the
city provided the emails about the fundrais­
ing  campaign  and  explained  that  “clean
copies” were eventually discovered during a
“manual search.”  was made that the financial and administra­
“It  appears  this  particular  email  thread
was  corrupted  during  (the  city’s  IT  depart­
ment)  process  of  transferring  the  emails
identified  as  part  of  its  search  parameters,”
according to a March 18 letter from the city’s
FOIA coordinator.
The Free Press made several attempts to
reach Hassan for comment but she declined
through  Nowling,  who  specializes  in  crisis
communication,  and  through  Wayne  State
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan poses with headlining comedian Louie Anderson and Dr. Sonia Hassan, the president and director of Make Your
Date, at the 2015 fundraiser gala. Duggan credited Hassan with carving a new path to reach pregnant mothers in Detroit. MAKEYOURDATE.ORG
University, which also declined requests for
an in­person interview. A university spokes­
man  instead  offered  to  answer  only  written
questions via email.
Nowling, who said Hassan was at a med­
ical conference in Europe, provided a state­
ment Thursday afternoon that asserted there
described  questions  about  any  relationship
as “a personal matter that is and should re­
main private.”
Counsel  Louis  Lessem  characterized  the
newspaper’s reporting as a sensationalist at­
tack on a “highly respected scientist.”  About the reporting team
“Make Your Date was from the beginning a
program  administered  appropriately  and
ethically  by  Wayne  State  University.  …  The
only beneficiaries of the Make Your Date pro­
gram  are  the  neediest  among  us,”  Lessem
said in a written statement.
Duggan backs Make Your Date early on
Duggan’s  professional  relationship  with
Hassan goes back at least to the beginning of
his  administration.  Shortly  after  he  was
elected in 2013, Duggan handpicked Hassan
to  carry  out  his  mission  to  reduce  Detroit’s
preterm  birth  rate,  which  is  among  the  na­
tion’s highest.
By the time Duggan picked her to lead the
effort,  Hassan,  a  lauded  doctor,  had  distin­
guished herself in the field of obstetrics and
gynecology. She “achieved a national and in­
ternational reputation of excellence” thanks
in part to her role as a lead investigator on a
breakthrough medical study to prevent pre­
term  birth,  according  to  a  favorable  recom­
mendation letter in 2014 from Wayne State’s
Department  of  Obstetrics  and  Gynecology
Promotion and Tenure Committee.
Hassan, a professor and associate dean for
maternal,  perinatal  and  child  health  at  the
university’s  School  of  Medicine,  earned
about $512,000 in 2015, according to school
documents.  She  launched  the  Make  Your
Date nonprofit in 2014 with support from the
city  and  Wayne  State.  Duggan  was  a  key
speaker at its initial news conference, touting
the organization’s role in his ambitious mis­
sion to fight preterm birth.
“Carrying her baby to full­term is the most
important thing a mother can do for the de­
velopment of her child,” Duggan said in a May
2014  WSU  news  release  about  the  launch.
“The Make Your Date program is designed to
make sure every baby born in Detroit is given
a chance at a healthy start in life.”
City  and  university  officials  contend  the
nonprofit  was  never  actually  operational,
even though it has been filing state and feder­
al  documentation  of  its  charitable  mission.
“At an early stage in the program’s develop­
ment, consideration was given as to whether
a 501(c)(3) corporation would be an appropri­
ate  structure,  a  subsequent  determination
tive  services  necessary  to  its  functioning
could  be  more  effectively  and  much  more
economically provided by existing university
resources,” according to Lessem.  several  specific  questions  about  its  dona­
Yet the program continues to promote it­
self as a nonprofit on its website, in fundrais­
ing  materials  and  required  government  re­
porting documents. When asked why it con­
tinues  to  file  such  paperwork,  Lessem  re­
sponded:  “It  is  not  evident  to  me  that
FREEP.COM ❚ SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2019 ❚ 15A
City of Detroit fundraising totals
Detroit’s Office of Development and
Grants is tasked with finding public and
private funds to support initiatives that
serve residents.
❚ 2016 ...................................... $231.6 million
❚ 2017  ..................................... $274.7 million
❚ 2018  ..................................... $325.2 million
SOURCE City of Detroit
❚ Joe Guillen has been covering city
governance and development issues for
the newspaper since 2013. He has
covered Detroit city hall, been a member
of the investigations team and previously
worked at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
covering county and state government.
Contact him at 313­222­6678 or
jguillen@freepress.com.
❚ Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press,
covering city issues and the community.
A Detroit native, Stafford is vice
president of the Detroit chapter of the
Society of Professional Journalists.
Contact her at kstafford@freepress.com
or 313­223­4759.
dissolving the corporation would serve to ad­
vance  the  Program’s  ends  or  benefit  those
who it serves.”  ment to make this happen.”
Big donations for Make Your Date
Make  Your  Date  was  launched  with  help
from major health organizations in the area,
including  St.  John  Providence  Health  Sys­
tem, Henry Ford Health System and the De­
troit  Medical  Center,  which  Duggan  ran  as
CEO until he resigned in 2012 to run for may­
or.
Some  of  those  health  groups  also  gave
Make  Your  Date  significant  financial  help
early on.
The Detroit Medical Center and the DMC
Foundation donated $100,000 each and Me­
ridian  Health  gave  $33,000  to  Make  Your
Date in its first year. All three groups would
continue to contribute over the next several
years as Make Your Date expanded its donor
base.
DMC  declined  to  answer  specific  ques­
tions about its contributions and instead pro­
vided a brief statement saying, “like many or­
ganizations in Detroit, the DMC and its Foun­
dation have provided support to this charita­
ble organization.”
DMC  Foundation  President  Mariam  No­
land confirmed its monetary support for the
organization.  A  spokeswoman  for  Meridian
said late last year that the health care insur­
ance  organization  has  contributed  to  Make
Your Date since 2014, but did not respond to
tions.
Of  the  $1.5  million  Make  Your  Date  has
raised,  the  newspaper  could  identify  from
university  records  about  $500,000  in  the
form of grants and another $900,000 in do­
nations.  Many  contributions  were  made
through its celebration galas, where Duggan
served  as  honorary  chairman  for  three
straight years, from 2015 to 2017.
Photos from one gala posted on its website
show  Hassan  and  Duggan  sitting  at  a  table
together and posing for a photo with come­
dian  Louie  Anderson,  the  headlining  enter­
tainment act.
While  onstage  at  the  2015  gala  at  MGM
Grand Detroit, Duggan credited Hassan with
starting Make Your Date and carving a new
path to reach pregnant mothers in Detroit.
“She’s  gone  the  next  step  and  said,  ‘It’s
good that I made the breakthrough. I want to
make sure the moms and kids really get treat­
ed,’ and she’s gone to the extent of organizing
this event. And on behalf of everybody in De­
troit,  Sonia,  thank  you,”  Duggan  said  in  a
video posted on Make Your Date’s Facebook
page.
Joe  Mullany,  a  former  CEO  of  DMC  who
left  the  health  system  in  January  2017,  also
spoke  at  the  gala  and  noted  that  he  had
worked with Duggan for a few months before
Duggan became mayor. Mullany, whom Dug­
gan hired at DMC, said the mayor personally
reached out to ask him to support his initia­
tive to fight preterm birth.
“When I got the phone call from the mayor,
it  was,  ‘Joe  we  gotta  collaborate,  we  gotta
bring  everybody  into  this  together.’  You
know?  I  was  like,  ‘Really  Mike?  Ok,  whooo,
we can do that,’ ” Mullany said to laughter in
the audience. “This is bigger than any institu­
tion, bigger than any entity. It’s a big issue we
need to attack together. And I’m so proud that
egos got put aside. The institutions were able
to come together and really make a commit­
In 2015, the City of Detroit began sending
to Make Your Date a portion of its state allo­
cation of money for maternal and child health
programs.  The  city  directed  more  than
$358,000 in grant money to Make Your Date
between 2015 and September 2017. The state,
Wayne State and the city’s grant administra­
tor — the Southeastern Michigan Health As­
sociation — all approved the city’s grant con­
tributions to Make Your Date.
Make  Your  Date  used  the  city  grants  for
many purposes — nurses’ labor costs, office
supplies, computer equipment and advertis­
ing were among the expenses, records show.
There has been no suggestion that Make Your
Date or Hassan have misused any funds.
The  city’s  third  and  final  grant  to  Make
Your Date, for $100,000, was finalized in May
2017 and expired on Sept. 30, 2017.
The Detroit city charter — a document that
lays out the rules of city government — pro­
hibits  the  mayor,  other  elected  officials  and
city employees from rendering services that
are in conflict or incompatible with the prop­
er discharge of their official duties. Also, one
of the 2017 contracts governing payments to
the program also contains conflict of interest
guidelines.
Cooper, the USC professor, said the public
deserves to know more about the city’s sup­
port of Make Your Date.
“Are we being fair to other nonprofits in the
city if we give money to a particular nonprof­
it?” Cooper said.
“We’re always concerned about when we
give out public funds. We want the receivers
to be accountable for how they’re used so we
can determine they were used in the most ef­
fective or efficient way.”
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NEW DOCUMENTARY SALUTES DETROIT’S Duggan’s

ROCK SPIRIT, OPENS FREEP FILM FEST
support for
BUSINESS, 9A program to
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Wild concepts test drivers’
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mayor runs prenatal effort
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

An  independent  probe  into  a  charitable

program  run  by  a  woman  with  close  ties  to
Detroit  Mayor  Mike  Duggan  has  been
launched after a Free Press investigation re­
vealed  last  week  that  the  program  received
$358,000  in  city  grants and
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METRO, 4A
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Prosecutors say The  Office  of  Inspector
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Simon lied tigation Monday afternoon in
Former MSU president is a  news  release  that  said  its
charged with lying to police probe  will  center  on  “Mayor Duggan
in Nassar investigation. Mike  Duggan  and  the  City  of
Detroit’s interactions with the
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“The  OIG  is  duty­bound,  pursuant  to  the
Charter of the City of Detroit, to initiate and to
pursue the investigation,” the release stated.
Creem magazine “In accordance with the Charter, the investi­

CREEM founder and publisher

Barry Kramer stares
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gation will focus on whether the Mayor and/
or any City officials potentially abused their
authority by providing preferential treatment

OF THE
June 1976. See DUGGAN, Page 6A
JOHN COLLIER/DFP 

NATION+WORLD, 13A

ROCK
Actress to plead
guilty in scheme
Felicity Huffman and others
School is
face 4 to 10 months in
college admissions scandal.  telling kids:
Inside today’s Free Press
No vaccines?
❚ Obituaries ............................12A
❚ Classified................................8B
Julie Hinds Detroit Free Press  |  USA TODAY NETWORK
Stay home!
❚ Comics ....................................2C

T
he range of emotions that Creem maga­ Kristen Jordan Shamus
❚ Puzzles................................4-5C Freep Film Detroit Free Press
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Volume 188 | No. 340 ©2019
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6A ❚ TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Cover story/Metro
AFSCME takes control of
Mich. state employee union
Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
LANSING – Michigan’s oldest state employ­
ee union — the Michigan State Employees As­
sociation — was placed in trusteeship Monday
after years of controversy and internal feuding.
Representatives of the American Federation
of  State,  County  and  Municipal  Employees
(AFSCME)  International,  the  union’s  parent
organization, arrived at the union’s Lansing of­
fices  Monday  morning,  locked  officials  out  of
their  computers,  and  sent  its  elected  officers
home, three union sources told the Free Press.
They  later  changed  the  locks  on  the  office
doors, sources said.
The  union,  founded  in 1950,  is  now  under
the control of a trustee.
Union officials said they were working on a
statement but had no immediate comment.
AFSCME officials weren’t immediately say­
ing what prompted the unusual action, but the
Free Press has reported on internal MSEA strife
since 2016, when the National Labor Relations
Board accused President Ken Moore and other
REGION/MICHIGAN
Stolen ambulance recovered
after patient flees in it
An ambulance that was reportedly stolen by
a patient Sunday night in Detroit has been re­
covered, according to authorities.  unit arrived.  lice  Chief  Joe  Platzer  said  about  halfway
Detroit  Police  said  the  incident  started  in
the  19000  block  of  Prevost  about  10:15  p.m.,
with EMS responding to what was believed to
be an overdose.  Michigan commission: Trial court
Police  said  medics  found  an  unresponsive
25­year­old man and placed him in the ambu­
lance.  LANSING –  A  commission  says  the  way
During transport to the hospital, police said,
the  man  woke  up  and  was  disoriented.  The
EMS driver stopped the ambulance and went
to assist his partner, as the man “continued to
be combative.”
When the medics exited the ambulance, po­
lice said, the man got into the driver’s seat of
the vehicle and fled.  dress how judges depend on money from de­
A  scout  car  stopped  the  ambulance  at
Woodmont  and  Plymouth  a  short  time  later,
police said, and the man was taken into custo­
dy and brought to a hospital.  would establish a fund for receipt of all trial
Detroit grandpa, 70, fatally shot
during struggle with teen
Police  are  searching  for  a  teenage  suspect
after a 70­year­old grandfather was shot and
killed in Detroit on Monday morning, authori­
ties said.
According to a preliminary report, police say
they believe a 16­year­old boy came over to a
house on the 9000 block of Mansfield to see the
victim’s granddaughter.  that  had  belonged  to  her  husband.  After  he
Duggan
Continued from Page 1A
to the Make Your Date Non­Profit.”
The city Office of Inspector General is an in­
dependent  office  that  investigates  waste,
abuse,  fraud,  and  corruption  in  city  govern­
ment.  The  office  is  headed  by  Ellen  Ha,  who
was appointed to the post by the Detroit City
Council in 2018 after serving as Detroit’s FOIA
coordinator in the city’s legal department.
The  results  of  the  investigation  will  be
shared, the OIG said, with the mayor’s office,
City Council and the public.
An email obtained by a Freedom of Informa­
tion Act request showed that Duggan ordered
the  city’s  chief  development  officer  to  raise
money for Make Your Date, which is a nonprofit
medical  organization  according  to  state  and
federal records, where Dr. Sonia Hassan serves
as president and director.
Duggan was seen late last year arriving after
hours at the same suburban residence as Has­
san in an edited surveillance video taken by a
private  investigator.  She  was  handpicked  by
the  mayor  to  lead  Detroit’s  efforts  to  reduce
preterm births in Detroit.  March  revealed  a  significant  commitment  of
The  city’s  financial  support,  an  attempted
fundraising campaign and Duggan’s repeated
promotion  of  Make  Your  Date,  raises  ethics
questions about whether the mayor used city
resources to benefit Hassan’s program.
The Free Press examined Make Your Date’s
operations and funding for several months and
as part of its investigation requested commu­
nications  involving  Hassan,  Duggan  and  the
mayor’s chief of staff, Alexis Wiley.
City  officials  previously  downplayed  Dug­
gan’s assistance to Make Your Date as typical
leaders  of  attempting  to  break  an  internal
union formed by union office staff.
The union has been forced to pay hundreds
of thousands of dollars in back pay and pen­
alties after findings that it violated federal la­
bor laws.
Moore  won  re­election  in  2018,  despite  a
challenge from union member James Zoccoli
of Garden City, who framed much of his cam­
paign around the controversies and the refus­
al of Moore and other board members to dis­
close how much had been spent on legal fees
defending the board’s position.
“I’m looking to hopefully get him out of of­
fice, so we can restore our reputation in orga­
nized  labor,”  Zoccoli  said  of  Moore  and  the
MSEA.
Moore could not be reached for comment
Monday. President since 2010, he has main­
tained  support  from  a  majority  of  the
14­member MSEA board.
The union has about 4,600 members, but
only about 65 delegates were eligible to vote
on  whether  Moore  got  another  three­year
term.
The incident was reported at 4:38 a.m. Po­
lice said an argument took place between the
70­year­old  and  the  teenager,  and  the  two
were reportedly tussling over a gun when the
firearm discharged.  “It was successful so fast that we ran out of
The 70­year­old was shot in the chest and
pronounced dead at the scene when a medic
Police said the suspect fled the scene with
the gun.  It was the first time the department hosted
funding is ‘broken’
Michigan trial courts are funded is “broken”
and should be overhauled with a new model
in which the state shares more of the cost.
The Trial Court Funding Commission, cre­
ated under a 2017 law, released its interim re­
port Monday.  the afternoon.
The recommendations are designed to ad­
fendants  convicted  of  crimes  to  cover  court
operating expenses.
Under  one  recommendation,  the  state
court  assessments  and  state  general  funds,
and  distribute  the  revenue  to  local  courts
based on caseloads.  guns,”  Platzer  said.  “We’ve  had  a  lot  of  citi­
Court employees would become state em­
ployees, and the state would fund technology
needs.
The Michigan Supreme Court is consider­
ing whether court costs ordered by judges are
an illegal tax against offenders.
Compiled from staff and Associated Press
reports.
Dr. Sonia Hassan sits with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan during the 2015 fundraising gala for
Hassan’s Make Your Date program at MGM Grand Detroit. MAKEYOURDATE.ORG
of the mayor’s support for city­backed philan­
thropic efforts. But the records obtained in late
resources  from  the  development  office  at  the
mayor’s direction.
The fundraising campaign Duggan ordered
began with an email introduction between the
city’s  development  officer  and  Hassan.  The
email’s  subject  line  was  “Make  Your  Date
Fundraising.”
Wiley  wrote  in  the  August  2017  email:  “I’d
like to introduce you to Ryan Friedrichs. He is
our  chief  development  officer  and  the  Mayor
has  tasked  him  with  launching  a  large  scale
fundraising effort to Make Your Date. He’ll be in
Port Huron Police Lt. Brian Kerrigan inspects a handgun during the department’s gun
buy-back program Saturday at the Municipal Office Center. Firearms purchased at the event
were to be sent to the Michigan State Police to be destroyed. BRIAN WELLS/TIMES HERALD
Port Huron citizens cash
in at gun buy-back event
Jackie Smith   Port Huron Times Herald
USA TODAY NETWORK – MICHIGAN
The  gun  buy­back  program  organized  by
Port  Huron’s  police  department  Saturday
didn’t quite go as planned.
money, and then we had to get our own funds
out of the police department,” Port Huron Po­
through the four­hour event.
a gun buy­back program, where residents can
bring  in  unwanted  firearms  in  exchange  for
cash,  and  Platzer  said  they  hadn’t  expected
such a high turnout.
The  effort  was  announced  in  February
with  $5,000  in  financial  support  from  Ach­
eson Ventures, but within an hour to an hour
and a half Saturday, police at the Municipal
Office  Center’s  south  parking  lot  quickly
sought other options to sustain the effort into
Platzer  and  Capt.  Marcy  Kuehn  said  for
some  command  staff,  that  included  cash
withdrawals from their own bank accounts.
By  noon,  officials  said  they’d  collected
about 50 firearms, as a steady stream of resi­
dents continued to swing by.
“These are the type of guns that we want to
get  off  the  street  —  rifles,  shotguns,  hand
zens  talk  to  us  and  said  they  were  thankful
that we were doing this program, that they’ve
had  these  guns  sitting  in  their  house.  They
didn’t know what to do with them, and that
this is what they were looking for.”
Carol Fletcher and her brother Paul Kortes,
both of Port Huron, each brought in unwant­
ed guns. Fletcher brought a pistol and a rifle
touch soon!”
The  fundraising  effort  was  eventually
deemed  unnecessary,  officials  stress,  but  not
before several city staffers collaborated on the
campaign. The effort did not result in any do­
nations. However, Make Your Date has raised
more than $1.5 million since its inception.
In a prepared statement after the investiga­
tion was announced, Wiley said the city wel­
comes  an  “independent  review”  of  the  city’s
role  in  supporting  the  Make  Your  Date  pro­
gram.
“An unbiased, thorough review of the facts
will  demonstrate  that  the  central  claims  and
unsubstantiated suggestions made by the De­
died  five  years  ago,  she  said  she  wasn’t  sure
what to do with them.
“Then, I heard about this and said, ‘That is
wonderful,’ ” she said. “See, I have a little one, a
10­year­old, and like I said, they could’ve both
been loaded. I don’t know anything about guns.
It’s just a relief.”
Kortes  said  his  gun  had  been  given  to  him
two decades ago but spent the time stored in
his garage.
“But I never even used it, never shot it,” he
said. “It was just sitting there. It thought it was
a good opportunity to get rid of it.”
And when the siblings got to the south MOC
lot, they were in for a surprise.
“We thought we were just going to turn them
in,” Kortes said.
His sister chimed in, “We didn’t even know
we’d  get  money.”  Combined,  they  received
$500.
Although the program had been geared to­
ward  city  residents,  Platzer  said  they  hadn’t
been  turning  away  residents  who  live  in  sur­
rounding townships.
In the back of a police truck laid dozens of
firearms,  and  in  a  container  beside  it  was  a
large  swath  of  unwanted  ammunition.  Once
the event was over, Platzer said the police de­
partment would go through the haul to ensure
none of the guns were stolen — Saturday’s pro­
gram  carried  a  “no­questions­asked”  tag  line
— before returning any of those to their owners
and sending the rest to the Michigan State Po­
lice to be destroyed.
Acheson Ventures Donna Niester, too, said
she hadn’t anticipated such a high turnout for
the event and suggested they may continue it
on an annual basis.
“For me, it’s a shock,” she said. “We’re going
to  get  them  an  additional  grant,  so  we’ll  pay
them back their additional money.”
troit  Free  Press  are  completely  false,”  Wiley
said, adding that “no city funds were ever pro­
vided to a Make Your Date nonprofit and no pri­
vate money was ever raised for it.”
Duggan has never directly addressed the al­
legations of an extramarital affair, insisting his
marriage is a private, personal matter unrelat­
ed  to  city  business.  Representatives  of  both
Duggan and Hassan refused last week to an­
swer direct questions about the nature of their
relationship. 
“Dr.  Hassan  does  not  comment  about  per­
sonal matters,” spokesman Bill Nowling said in
a statement.
Wiley last week referenced a previous state­
ment from the mayor’s office that declined to
characterize  Duggan’s  relationship  with  Has­
san.  “This  was  addressed  last  November  and
we made clear then that there would be no fur­
ther comment,” Wiley wrote in an email.
In  addition,  the  mayor’s  office  vehemently
denied the city ever provided money directly to
the  Make  Your  Date  nonprofit.  The  city  con­
tends  Make  Your  Date  is  administered  as  a
Wayne  State  University  program,  sentiments
echoed  by  university  officials.  However,  the
program continues to promote itself as a non­
profit on its website, in fundraising materials
and required state and federal government re­
porting documents. 
Wayne State published on its website Mon­
day a response indicating it also welcomed an
independent  review  “following  the  question­
able reporting from the Detroit Free Press.”
“While  Wayne  State  University  is  not  the
target of the article, we feel compelled to de­
fend a program critical to the health of Detroit
mothers and babies, and a dedicated, talented
Wayne  State  faculty  member  who  was  ma­
ligned based on implications and innuendos.”
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THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM E2 PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

DETROIT ROCK CITY Duggan
dodges
SPORTS, 1C
Pistons clinch
ON OPENING NIGHT questions
playoff berth
Advance with victory over
Knicks in final game of season.
amid probe
He avoids answering about
doctor who heads program;
Nessel is looking into it 
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

Days after learning the Detroit Office of In­
spector General is investigating city support of
the program overseen by a Wayne State Uni­
MOTOR CITY, 1E
versity doctor, Mayor Mike Duggan avoided a
Ford Edge ST is barrage of questions Wednes­
day about his relationship with
fast and fun the program’s director.
Mark Phelan reviews the SUV’s A Free  Press  investigation
performance model. published  last  week  raised
conflict  of  interest  concerns
regarding Duggan and Dr. So­
Duggan nia Hassan, who runs a med­
ical  program  that  received
$358,000 in city grants and also fundraising
efforts in 2017 ordered by the mayor. 
Duane Smelser of Ira Township dances before the opening night showing. RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS Duggan was asked several times about the
nature of his relationship with Hassan during
a City  Hall  news  conference  Wednesday,
Bill Laitner Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK called to discuss developments in the federal
probe of the Detroit demolition program. But
The Fillmore Detroit welcomed a crowd of rock­music insiders, fans and a few celebrities Thurs­ the  mayor,  who  previously  refused  to  com­
NATION+WORLD, 6A ment,  would  say  only  that  he  supports  the
day night to open this year’s Freep Film Festival.  ❚ First up? A documentary tribute to Detroit’s work to fight preterm birth by Hassan’s Make 
DeVos defends
literacy cuts rock­music history — and specifically to Creem magazine, which carried the beat nationwide from
See DUGGAN, Page 11A
Education secretary claims the late 1960s through the early 1980s. See FILM FESTIVAL, Page 10A ❚ More in Play and Sports
programs are ineffective.

Inside today’s Free Press

Bob Probert, Goose Feds: Dearborn
❚ Obituaries......................12-14A Loonies and a hat trick man trained by
❚ Movie Guide ..........................7D
of horrific headlines
❚ Comics ..................................13D
❚ Puzzles ................................2-3F
Keith Gave Special to Detroit Free Press
ISIS could face life
USA TODAY NETWORK Tresa Baldas Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

Weather “Keith Gave was this (expletive) who wrote a

column for the Detroit Free Press. We never got
High 54° ❚ Low 50°
along because he was always one of those re-
Morning shower. Forecast, 2A
porters that was just waiting for something,
so he could report the (expletive), you know?”
— Bob Probert, in his book, “Tough Guy.”
Daily $2.00
Bob Probert deserves some credit in that
line he penned for his book — and repeated
in  the  film  that  documents  his  short  but
Volume 188 | No. 342 ©2019
eventful life; he pretty much nailed the job
Home delivery pricing inside
Subscribe: 800-395-3300
description of a newspaper beat writer.
Classified: 586-977-7500;
800-926-8237 See PROBERT, Page 10A
A  Dearborn  man  who  was  arrested  on  a
Syrian battlefield and accused of helping ISIS
is facing new charges alleging he was trained
by  the  terror  group,  attended  an  ISIS  camp
and  fired  a  machine  gun  on  its  behalf  —
claims that could send him to prison for life if
he is convicted.
‘Tough Guy: The Bob Probert Story’ The man’s family, however, has long main­
tained that he is innocent of any wrongdoing
❚ 8 p.m. Thursday: Patriot Theater at the War Memorial.
and  that  he  was  kidnapped  by  the  terrorist
❚ 7 p.m. Friday: Emagine Royal Oak. group and held against his will.
DETROIT FREE PRESS ARCHIVES See ISIS CHARGES, Page 11A

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Cover stories

Duggan
Continued from Page 1A
Your Date program.
“I’m never going to talk about my personal
life, as you well know,” Duggan said.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office told
the Free Press on Monday that it also was look­
ing into the situation, following publication of
the newspaper’s investigation last week.
“We  recently  became  aware  of  these  con­
cerns and we are looking into them,” according
to  Kelly  Rossman­McKinney,  the  Attorney
General’s communications director.
No other details regarding state­level inter­
est in the case were available, however the of­
fice  does  oversee  requirements  for  organiza­
tions that solicit or receive charitable contribu­
tions in Michigan and provides consumer in­
formation regarding nonprofits.
At the news conference he called Wednes­
day at City Hall, Duggan also expressed confi­
dence  that  the  federal  investigation  into  the
city’s demolition program removed any doubts
about its integrity.
At the news conference, reporters peppered
Duggan  with  several  questions  about  Make
Your  Date  and  he  addressed  many  of  them
while  declining  to  talk  about  his  relationship
with  Hassan.  But  he  eventually  stopped  an­
swering questions and walked away from the
mayor’s briefing room podium as his staff end­
ed the news conference.
The  Free  Press  investigation  showed  the
city’s chief development officer and members
of his staff undertook a fundraising campaign
for Make Your Date at Duggan’s direction.
The  fundraising  effort  was  eventually
deemed  unnecessary,  but  not  before  several
city staffers collaborated on the campaign. The
effort did not result in any donations. However,
Make Your Date has raised more than $1.5 mil­
lion since its inception.
On Monday, the city Office of Inspector Gen­
eral launched a probe into Make Your Date.
Duggan said he hopes the media thoroughly
reports the probe’s conclusions.  But  a  Freedom  of  Information  Act  request
“I am a huge supporter of Wayne State Uni­
versity’s  Make  Your  Date  program,  and  Dr.
Hassan never took a dollar and so I’m going to
let the OIG process play out,” Duggan said. “All I
ask is that you publicize the conclusion of the
investigation as much as you publicize the in­
vestigation itself.”
As he left the news conference, he did not
answer a question about whether he will dis­
cuss the Hassan relationship with the Inspec­
tor General.
Duggan defended the city’s support of Make
Your Date. He said the program was structured
as a part of Wayne State University and not a
nonprofit  organization  when  it  received  city
Mayor Mike Duggan speaks at a news conference Wednesday. It was called to discuss
developments in the federal probe of the Detroit demolition program. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
grants and fundraising support. However, con­
tracts for the grants also identified Make Your
Date as getting the money.  State University’s Make Your Date
Duggan was seen late last year arriving after
hours at the same suburban residence as Has­
san in an edited surveillance video taken by a
private  investigator.  She  was  handpicked  by
the  mayor  to  lead  Detroit’s  efforts  to  reduce
preterm births in Detroit.
The  city’s  support raises  ethics  questions
about whether the mayor used city resources
to benefit Hassan’s program.  fended  the  city’s  quality  controls  and  said  it
City  officials  had  previously  downplayed
Duggan’s assistance to Make Your Date as typ­
ical  of  the  mayor’s  support  for  city­backed
philanthropic efforts.
uncovered an email that showed Duggan’s in­
volvement in the high­level fundraising effort.
Duggan had ordered the city fundraising effort
for the program, which was communicated via
email to Hassan by his chief of staff.  er  demolition  proposals  for  their  employer,
The results of the OIG investigation will be
shared  with  the  mayor’s  office,  City  Council
and the public.
Demolition probe
Separately,  Duggan  addressed  Tuesday’s
news  that  two  former  employees  of  a  promi­
nent  contractor  firm  in  Detroit’s  demolition
program  pleaded  guilty  after  they  were  ac­
“I am a huge supporter of Wayne
program, and Dr. Hassan never
took a dollar and so I’m going to
let the OIG process play out.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, talking about an
investigation over city support of a program aimed at
fighting preterm births
cused  of  bid­rigging  and  accepting  bribes  to­
taling  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars.  The
convictions  were  the  first  to  result  from  a
lengthy federal investigation into the program,
which has been fueled by more than $258 mil­
lion in federal funds.  dent of the controls in place.”
Anthony Daguanno and Aradondo Haskins
said  they  shared  key  bid  information  with  a
subcontractor when they were putting togeth­
Adamo Group.  previously  worked  at  The  (Cleveland)  Plain
Daguanno  received  more  than  $372,000,
according to the indictment.
Haskins, who also later worked for the city’s
Building  Authority,  received  $26,000,  includ­
ing some money after he was hired by Detroit
to oversee certain demolition projects.
In announcing the guilty pleas, federal au­
thorities said in a release that the government,
“as of today’s date, does not anticipate charg­
ing any additional public officials.”
But it wasn’t immediately clear whether the
statement  solely  addressed  Daguanno’s  and
Haskins’  case  or  the  entirety  of  the  wide­
reaching  probe,  which  has  splintered  off  into
different facets within the last several months.
When  reached  for  comment,  both  the  U.S.
Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Special
Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief
Program  declined  comment,  saying  they
wouldn’t make a statement “beyond the press
release.”
Duggan on Wednesday said he was pleased
by  the  announcement  that  no  additional
charges were expected against any additional
public officials. 
“I said from the very beginning, if any public
official  committed  a  crime,  they  should  be
charged,” Duggan said. “But in the three­year
investigation,  I  never  saw  any  evidence  that
anyone running the Land Bank or the Building
Authority had broken any laws.”
But  when  pressed  on  whether  he  received
any direct confirmation beyond what was stat­
ed  in  the  news  release,  Duggan  said  he  was
“acting today off the statement that was in the
release,” before declining to share any private
discussions he may have had with federal au­
thorities.
The convictions come a week after two con­
gressional leaders — U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib
and  Brenda  Lawrence  —  jointly  called  for  in­
creased oversight of blight remediation efforts
across  Michigan,  including  Detroit’s  demoli­
tion program.
The  move  followed  Free  Press  investiga­
tions  this  year  outlining  concerns  about  the
city’s  quality  controls  within  the  federally
funded program, which is overseen by the De­
troit Land Bank Authority and Detroit Building
Authority. 
Despite  several  recent  high­profile  inci­
dents in the demolition program, Duggan de­
has  responded  strongly  to  companies  that
have violated procedures in place.
“I think the oversight is excellent,” he said. “I
think they’re responding to accounts that may
not be factually accurate but I am very confi­
Joe  Guillen  has  been  covering  city  govern­
ance and development issues for the newspa­
per since 2013. He has covered Detroit city hall,
been a member of the investigations team and
Dealer covering county and state government.
Contact him at 313­222­6678 or jguillen@free­
press.com.
Kat  Stafford  is  the  Detroit  government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na­
tive,  Stafford  is  vice  president  of  the  Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Journal­
ists. Contact her at kstafford@freepress.com. 

ISIS charges
Continued from Page 1A

Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli, 28, a natural­born
U.S. citizen who has been locked up since his
arrest last summer, is believed to be one of only
two American men to be captured on an Islam­
ic State battlefield and charged in the U.S. with
supporting a terrorist group. He was captured
last  summer  as  he  tried  to  escape  a  valley  in
Syria,  where  American­backed  Syrian  forces
had been trying to destroy remaining pockets
of  Islamic  State  control.  He  was  transferred
into U.S. custody in July 2018.
The  government  says  this  case  is  about
holding accountable Americans who leave this
country to support terrorist groups.
As Assistant Attorney General John Demers
stated:  “The  (Dearborn)  defendant  traveled
overseas,  joined  ISIS,  and  received  training
from  the  terrorist  organization.  He  was  ulti­
mately  detained  overseas  and  turned  over  to
the FBI. With these charges, he will be held ac­
countable.”
Musaibli’s lawyer was not available for com­
ment. His family has long argued that the gov­
ernment has it wrong, saying Musaibli is not an
extremist  and  has  never  associated  with  any
terrorist group.
His  brother,  Abe  Musaibli,  26,  previously
told the Free Press that his older brother trav­
eled to Iraq from Yemen to help refugees and
was  later  kidnapped  by  ISIS  members  and
forced into Syria. He said his brother was jailed
in an ISIS prison, pleaded for help and eventu­
ally escaped to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The  government,  however,  has  painted  a
different picture, alleging Musaibli helped ISIS
for three years, using various aliases, including
Abu Shifa Musaibli and Abu ‘Abd Al­Rahman
Al­Yemeni.
According  to  the  superseding  —  or  new  —
indictment, from April 2015 through June 2018,
Musaibli knowingly provided and attempted to
provide material support to ISIS, received mil­
itary­type training from ISIS, discharged a ma­
chine  gun  on  the  terrorist  group’s  behalf  and
attended an ISIS military camp.
U.S.  Attorney  Matthew  Schneider  said  the
April 11, 2019
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD FOR THE DRAFT 2019
MICHIGAN CONSOLIDATED ANNUAL ACTION PLAN
Prior to submission for further funding from the Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) Office of Community Planning and Development, Michigan is required to
prepare a Consolidated Housing and Community Development Plan (the
Consolidated Plan). The Consolidated Plan proposes an action strategy by which
those needs will be addressed through five program years for the period July 1, 2015
– June 30, 2020. The five annual action plans are funded by five formula programs
covered in the Michigan Consolidated Plan (HOME, Community Development Block
Grant, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDs, the Emergency Solutions Grant,
and the Housing Trust Fund). The Michigan State Housing Development Authority
(MSHDA) is responsible for preparing the Michigan Consolidated Plan and soliciting
comments from the public regarding the plan on an annual basis.
Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli’s sister, right, and
The comment period will commence on April 11, 2019 and end on May 11, 2019
mother leave the Theodore Levin Federal and will focus on the draft action plan language. Copies of the 2019 Michigan
Courthouse in Detroit in 2018. Consolidated Action Plan may be downloaded free of charge from the MSHDA
CAMERON POLLACK/DETROIT FREE PRESS website at www.michigan.gov/mshda.
All interested parties are invited to attend the public hearing listed below and/or
“By traveling to Syria to train submit written comments for the Michigan Consolidated Action Plan. Information
gathered during the public hearings and the written comments received will be used
and fight as a member of ISIS, to develop the 2019 Michigan Consolidated Action Plan.
Mr. Mousaibli fought against
Please note the following date and locations for the 2019 Public Hearings:
coalition forces, which included
Detroit: Wednesday, April 24, 2019 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon
members of the U.S. Military.” MSHDA Detroit Office, Cadillac Place, 3028 W. Grand Boulevard,
Suite 4-602
Timothy Slater, Detroit’s FBI chief,
talking about the case
Lansing: Thursday, May 2, 2019 from 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
MSHDA Lansing Office, 735 E. Michigan Avenue
The government alleges Masaibli not only
fought against Syrians, but American forces, Individuals and organizations unable to attend the hearing may still submit written
too. comments to Tonya Young, 735 East Michigan Avenue, P.O. Box 30044, Lansing,
MI 48909. Written comments must be received no later than May 8, 2019.
“By traveling to Syria to train and fight as a
Comments can also be submitted to the MSHDA Consolidated Plan Coordinator via
member of ISIS, Mr. Mousaibli fought against e-mail to hidmailbox@michigan.gov.
coalition forces, which included members of
the U.S. Military,” Detroit’s FBI chief Timothy Special Assistance: The meeting locations are accessible to mobility-challenged
Slater stated Wednesday. individuals. Persons with disabilities needing accommodations for effective
Musaibli was initially charged with crimes participation in a meeting should contact Housing Initiatives at 517.335.2524 a week
that could send him to prison for 20 years, if in advance to request mobility, visual, hearing or other assistance.
convicted. The new charges carry a manda­
tory minimum sentence of 40 years, or up to
DF-GMG0016741-01

new  indictment  in  Masaibli’s  case  adds life.

charges  “to  more  fully  capture  his  conduct” Contact  Tresa  Baldas:  tbaldas@free­
while he was with ISIS for nearly three years. press.com
4A ❚ TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Metro
Mayor Duggan faces recall effort
2 petitions filed
seeking to remove
him from office
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
The investigation into whether Detroit May­
or Mike Duggan gave preferential treatment to
a local medical program has spawned a recall
effort against the mayor.
Government  agitator  Robert  Davis  and
Brenda Hill, who called herself a “political ac­
tionist,”  have  coordinated  on  recall  petitions
REACHING FOR SPRING
Shruthi Siddu, 31, and Atreya Balekai, 2, of Troy have fun on the playground at Boulan Park in Troy on Monday. The
thermometer didn’t quite crack 70, but it was still warm and sunny enough for outdoor springtime fun in metro Detroit.
The high was 68, according to the National Weather Service. Rain will move into the area Tuesday morning but should be
gone by early afternoon. Tuesday’s high is expected to be 68, with a low around 42. KATHLEEN GALLIGAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Adoption agency changes $4.7M effort to stop ‘zombie’ deer
LGBT policy after settlement before they’re in Michigan forever
Decision only applies to
group’s Michigan operations
David Eggert
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LANSING – A major faith­based foster care
and adoption contractor for the state of Michi­
gan said Monday it will place children in LGBT
homes, reversing course following a recent le­
gal settlement.
Grand Rapids­based Bethany Christian Ser­
vices is responsible for about 8% of Michigan’s
more  than  13,000  foster  care  and  adoption
cases involving children from troubled house­
holds.
“We are disappointed with how this settle­
filed on Monday against Duggan. The petitions
are  worded  differently  but  they  both  seek  to
kick Duggan out of office based on an ongoing
investigation by the Detroit Office of Inspector
General  into  the  city’s  support  of  the  Make
Your Date organization.
Dr. Sonia Hassan, an associate dean at the
Wayne  State  University  School  of  Medicine
with close personal ties to Duggan, runs Make
Your Date, which aims to fight preterm birth.
A Free Press investigation earlier this month
showed the city directed more than $358,000
in federal grant money to Make Your Date be­
tween 2015 and 2017. Duggan also ordered the
city’s  chief  development  officer  to  help  raise
money for Make Your Date in 2017.  tailed  the  city’s  support  to  Make  Your  Date.
Duggan was seen late last year arriving after
hours at the same suburban residence as Has­
ment agreement has been im­
plemented by the state govern­
ment.  Nonetheless,  Bethany
will  continue  operations  in
Michigan,  in  compliance  with
our  legal  contract  require­
Nessel ments,” the nonprofit said in a
statement, confirming a policy
change that was first reported by WGVU­FM.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a
Democrat,  announced  the  settlement  last
month with same­sex couples who had sued
in 2017. It prevents faith­based agencies from
refusing  to  place  children  in  LGBT  house­
holds for religious reasons if it has accepted
them  for  referral  from  the  Michigan  Deer infected with chronic wasting disease
See ADOPTION, Page 5A
“He is by far one of the most
corrupt, inept public officials this
city has ever elected.”
Government agitator Robert Davis
san in an edited surveillance video taken by a
private  investigator.  She  was  handpicked  by
the  mayor  to  lead  Detroit’s  efforts  to  reduce
preterm births in Detroit.  he would not name.
Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha opened
her investigation days after the Free Press de­
Both the administration and Wayne State have
repeatedly denied any conflict of interest due
can look emaciated and confused,
wandering aimlessly. ERIC SHARP/DFP
to  the  personal  relationship  because  the  pro­
gram  is  administered  by  the  university,  they
say. 
“Mike Duggan has been no friend to the citi­
zens of the city of Detroit,” Davis said. “He is by
far one of the most corrupt, inept public offi­
cials this city has ever elected.”
This is Davis’ second attempt to recall Dug­
gan. His first petition was approved in 2016 but
he said he collected no signatures. This time is
different,  he  said,  because  he  has  $50,000
committed  from  Detroit  businessmen,  whom
 
Duggan’s Chief of Staff Alexis Wiley said in a
brief statement, “As was the case in 2016, a re­
call  is  still  a  right  provided  under  the  City 
See DUGGAN, Page 5A
A Royal Thai Navy ship pulls a seastead
to shore. YONGYOS PRUKSARAK
Seastead
living puts
Michigan
man on run
Thai officials seize floating
home, seek to arrest couple
Frank Witsil Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
The Royal Thai Navy seized and disman­
tled the floating platform that a Michigan na­
tive and Bitcoin investor had made his home
with his Thai girlfriend.
In  a  video  posted  to  social  media  early
Monday, a high­ranking Thai military official,
Witthanat Kochsanei, offered details in Thai
of the fate of the house that has been called a
“seastead,” a word combining sea and home­
stead.
Meanwhile, the Phuket News, a Thailand
news  outlet,  is  reporting  that  Thai  officials
also may drop charges accusing the pair of vi­
olating  Thailand’s  national  sovereignty,
which  could  result  in  life  imprisonment  or
death.
Instead, they may be prosecuted on a less
severe charge.
Still, not much is known about the safety
and  whereabouts  of  the  couple  —  Chad  El­
wartowski and Supranee Thepdet — who said
through social media that they have been on
the run from Thai officials for nearly a week 
See SEASTEAD, Page 8A
Aleanna Siacon Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
Michigan is raising the stakes in its battle to
fight chronic wasting disease in deer, a neuro­
logical  condition  that  makes  deer  look  like
“zombies.”
The  Michigan  Department  of  Natural  Re­
sources is teaming up with Michigan State Uni­
versity to dole out $4.7 million in grants to sup­
port efforts targeting the disease. 
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is related to
mad  cow  disease.  Infected  deer  often  look
emaciated and confused, wandering aimlessly
and unafraid of humans.
Dr.  Russ  Mason,  chief  of  the  DNR  Wildlife
Division,  told  the  Free  Press  portions  of  the 
See ‘ZOMBIE’ DEER, Page 8A
 FREEP.COM ❚ TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2019 ❚ 5A

Metro

Dragon trail work may start this summer 
Hope is for hiking, biking
path to be national attraction
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BIG  PRAIRIE  TOWNSHIP –  A  new  trail  in
western  Michigan  that  developers  believe
could  become  a  national  attraction  is  set  to
break ground this year.
Construction on Michigan’s Dragon at Har­
dy Dam trail in Newaygo and Mecosta counties
could  begin  by  this  summer,  the  Muskegon
Chronicle reported.
From an aerial view, the 47­mile hiking and
biking trail encircles a dam­formed pond that
resembles the shape of a dragon. The pond is
part of the Muskegon River that pooled above
the  Hardy  Dam,  which  is  owned  by  Jackson­
based utility Consumers Energy.
Visitors will be able to use the trail to walk or
bike along the top of the dam.
“There are other trails that are this long, but
very few are circular, fewer go around a body of
water and none of them that we could find go
around  a  body  of  water  that’s  undeveloped,”
said Ryan Coffey Hoag, a land use educator at
Michigan State University Extension who’s in­
volved in the project.
The  2­foot­wide  trail  is  planned  to  pass
through  untamed  terrain,  six  campgrounds
and  eight  boat  launches  and  marinas.  The
route will also include 13 scenic overlooks and
20 footbridges.
“It became really obvious really quickly that
this wasn’t a local trail; this was going to be an
attraction that would bring people into the re­
gion,” Hoag said. “This is about economic de­
velopment.”
The trail and its bridges, overlooks, signage
and kiosks are all estimated to cost more than
$3 million combined, he said.
Newaygo  and  Mecosta  counties  each  pro­
vided $150,000 for the project, which also re­
ceived $860,000 in grant money and other do­
nations.  The  counties  have  applied  for  two
grants from the Michigan Department of Natu­
ral Resources that could provide an additional
$750,000, Hoag said. The more than $1 million
remaining is expected to be raised through cor­
porate and private donations.
The  trail  is  scheduled  for  completion  in
2022. It’s still pending approval from the Fed­
eral  Energy  Regulatory  Commission,  which
regulates  the  property’s  owner,  Consumers
Energy.

Chalk up 
a win for
people who
park too long
ASSOCIATED PRESS

DETROIT – Marking tires to enforce park­
ing  rules  is  like  entering  property  without  a
search warrant, a federal court said Monday
as it declared the practice unconstitutional in
Michigan and three other states.
Alison  Taylor  had  received  more  than  a
dozen $15 tickets for exceeding the two­hour
parking limit in Saginaw. The city marks tires
with chalk to keep track of how long a vehicle
is parked. Her lawyer argued that a parking
patrol officer violated the Fourth Amendment
right against unreasonable searches.
A  three­judge  panel  of  the  appeals  court
agreed.
The purpose of marking tires was to “raise
revenue,” not to protect the public against a
safety risk, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Ap­
peals said.
“The city does not demonstrate, in law or
logic, that the need to deter drivers from ex­
ceeding the time permitted for parking – be­
fore they have even done so – is sufficient to
justify a warrantless search under the com­
munity caretaker rationale,” the court said.
The decision sets a new standard for Mich­
igan,  Ohio,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  the
states  covered  by  the  6th  Circuit.  The  court
overturned an opinion by U.S. District Judge
Thomas Ludington, who had called the legal
theory “unorthodox” and dismissed the case
Mayor Mike Duggan is being investigated over alleged preferential treatment given to a local medical program. Two recall petitions, seeking in favor of Saginaw.
his removal from office, were filed Monday. MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS Saginaw’s city manager didn’t immediate­
ly reply to a message seeking comment.
Taylor’s attorney, Philip Ellison, began re­

Duggan
Continued from Page 4A
Charter.”  There  was  no  other  comment  from
city officials.
Davis’  petition  language  references  Dug­
gan’s ties to Hassan, the inspector general in­
vestigation and “whether Mayor Duggan and/
or any city officials potentially abused their au­
thority by providing preferential treatment to
the  Make  Your  Date  nonprofit  organization,
which is run by Dr. Sonia Hassan.”  have to collect valid signatures equal to at least
Hill, who filed the second petition to recall
Duggan on Monday, said she’s been displeased
with the mayor since he was first elected. Hill
has long been active in Detroit politics and re­
cently worked on Coleman Young II’s failed bid
against Duggan for mayor in 2017.
“Time after time, we’ve found that he hasn’t
done what’s in the best interest of the majority
of Detroiters,” Hill said. Former mayor “Kwame
(Kilpatrick)  didn’t  steer  grants  toward  his  al­
leged mistress. Duggan’s doing that.”
The  Wayne  County  election  commission
will review the petition language in the coming
weeks at a hearing that has yet to be scheduled.
If  either  petition  is  approved,  Davis  would
25% of votes cast for governor in Detroit last
year.
According to Michigan law, recall petition
language  must  be  submitted  to  the  county
clerk in the county where the elected officer
resides before a recall petition may be circu­
lated.
Davis  filed  recall  petitions  in  September
2015 against Duggan, citing his hiring of two
top  administrators  who  have  since  left  the
city — former Department of Neighborhoods
Director  Charlie  Beckham  and  Corporation
Counsel  Melvin  Butch  Hollowell  —  despite
their brushes with the law.
Wayne  County  Clerk  spokeswoman  Lisa
Williams­Jackson  said  petition  sponsors
have 180 days to collect signatures once their
petition is approved.
searching  the  issue  when  another  lawyer
complained that his tire was marked while he
sat in his car. It’s apparently a common prac­
tice  in  downtown  Saginaw,  where  there  are
no meters to enforce time limits.
“A  good  portion  of  my  practice  is  repre­
senting the everyday person,” Ellison said.
He argued that marking tires was similar
to  police  secretly  putting  a  GPS  device  on  a
vehicle without a proper warrant, which was
the subject of a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court rul­
ing.
The case will return to federal court in Bay
City.  Ellison  wants  Ludington  to  certify  the
lawsuit  as  a  class­action,  with  refunds  for
people who got tickets. 

Adoption
Continued from Page 4A
Department of Health and Human Services.
Lansing­based  St.  Vincent  Catholic  Chari­
ties  challenged  the  deal  in  federal  court  last
week, alleging violations of the U.S. Constitu­
tion and the federal Religious Freedom Resto­
ration Act.
Of  the  faith­based  agencies  known  to  not
serve LGBT couples or individuals in Michigan,
Bethany does the most work for the state. The
nonprofit was handling 1,159 cases as of Febru­
ary.  Catholic  Charities  had  404  cases,  or  3%,
while St. Vincent had 80, or less than 1%.
State  human  services  department  spokes­
man Bob Wheaton said the agency was pleased
it  will  “be  able  to  continue  its  long­standing
partnership  with  Bethany  in  providing  ser­
vices to children and families.”
Nessel tweeted over the weekend that hav­
ing  more  adoption  agencies  not  discriminate
results in “more children adopted into loving,
nurturing ‘forever’ homes. Thank you to Betha­
ny Christian Services.”
On April 11, Bethany’s national board of di­
rectors  voted  to  change  the  policy.  It  applies
only in Michigan, not to its operations in other
states. The policy change also does not impact
“If St. Vincent is unable to
receive referrals from or
contract with the State, it will
be forced to close its foster care
and adoption programs ...”
St. Vincent Catholic Charities
private adoptions, according to Bethany.
A 2015 Republican­enacted law says child­
placement agencies are not required to pro­
vide any services that conflict with their sin­
cerely held religious beliefs. But Nessel’s set­
tlement says the law does not apply if agen­
cies are under contract with the state.
In its lawsuit, St. Vincent said it fears the
state  will  not  renew  its  contract  in  October
because of the local nonprofit’s religious be­
liefs and practices.
“If St. Vincent is unable to receive referrals
from  or  contract  with  the  State,  it  will  be
forced  to  close  its  foster  care  and  adoption
programs,  ending  a  decades­old  religious
ministry  and  reducing  the  number  of  agen­
cies available to serve families and children in
need,” the agency said in the complaint.
Man ruled justified in shooting 
in attempted home burglary
Kara Berg Lansing State Journal own pickup at that location, leaving the engine
USA TODAY NETWORK — MICHIGAN running and headlights on. 
The man grabbed his gun and went outside
SEBEWA  TWP.  –  A  69­year­old  Ionia with  Eddy,  while  his  wife  stayed  inside  and
County  homeowner  who  fatally  shot  a  Lan­ called  911.  They  were  not  able  to  find  anyone
sing man will not be charged with the man’s outside. 
death, prosecutors say.  The man told Eddy “Don’t come in here,” just
Justin Eddy, 40, was shot and killed during before the 911 call ended, according to the news
a reported attempted home burglary in Sebe­ release. The police investigation showed Eddy
wa Township, near Portland, in early January.  went  back  inside  the  home  and  smashed  the
Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle Butler ruled cell phone and asked for the gun several times.
Monday  that  the  homeowner  acted  in  self­ Eddy struck the man in the face and pushed
defense when he shot Eddy, and chose not to him down to the ground and attempted to take
issue charges. the gun from the man’s waistband before the
A man, later identified as Eddy, forced his man  shot  and  killed  Eddy,  according  to  the
way  into  a  home  in  the  4000  block  of  East news release. 
Musgrove  Highway  occupied  by  a  married He was pronounced dead at 11:36 p.m. Toxi­
couple, a 69­year­old man and a 63­year­old cology reports showed Eddy had a blood alco­
woman, just after 10:30 p.m. Jan 1. hol content of 0.25 and the presence of fenta­
He told the couple he was being chased by nyl  in  his  system,  supporting  his  “erratic  be­
someone who was trying to kill him, accord­ havior,” according to the release. He had strug­
ing to the news release. He had arrived at the gled with drug abuse and had recent contacts
couple’s home in a pickup that had been sto­ with  police  and  the  Michigan  Department  of
len from a home about two miles east, accord­ Health and Human Services. 
ing  to  the  news  release.  He  abandoned  his
 PLAYING THE FIELD
With no clear favorite in the Kentucky Derby,
Maximum Security could get the roses.
SPORTS, 2B
O N G U A R D F O R 1 8 7 Y E A R S

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

New Jeep factory a done deal
Land swaps complete; Detroit ments needed for FCA to move ahead building
the new Jeep assembly plant near Mack and St.
More inside
plant expected to open in ’20 Jean. ❚ Ram drives reduced profits for FCA. 9A
Construction  should  start  this  year  with  a ❚ GM talks of possible $1B expansion. 9A
John Gallagher planned opening date of late 2020.
Detroit Free Press FCA plans to invest $2.5 billion in the Jeep
USA TODAY NETWORK
plant and the adjacent Jefferson North Assem­ new plant and to demolish or renovate homes
bly Plant, creating an estimated 4,950 jobs. in the area. 
Fiat Chrysler’s new Jeep factory on Detroit’s Among the details Duggan announced: ❚ The city turns over about 215 acres of land
east side is now a done deal. ❚ FCA agreed to pay for a $35­million pack­ assembled for the project to FCA. The final big
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced at a age of community benefits, including $19 mil­ piece of that includes about 80 acres owned by 
late  Friday  afternoon  news  conference  that lion for workforce training and education, with FCA’s Mack Engine Plant II in Detroit will be
agreement  has  been  reached  on  all  the  ele­ millions more to build a buffer wall around the See JEEP PLANT, Page 7A converted to a new Jeep plant. JUNFU HAN/DFP

Mayor Mike UPGRADES COMING AT DETROIT PARK

As costs for
Duggan’s nuclear
wife files for energy soar,
a divorce its future is
Joe Guillen and Gina Kaufman
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
uncertain
JC Reindl
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, whose per­ Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
sonal life has been the subject of media re­
ports  in  recent  months,  is  now  facing  di­
vorce. There was a festive atmosphere in down­
His wife of more than three decades, Ma­ town Monroe earlier this week when a group
ry Loretto Maher, filed for divorce Friday in of nearly two dozen environmental activists
Wayne County Circuit Court. held a “funeral” for nuclear energy, complete
The divorce filing comes a month after a An aerial view Thursday of the James Scott Memorial Fountain and construction underway with a small homemade coffin bearing an effi­
Free  Press  investigation for the Grand Prix on Belle Isle in Detroit. MANDI WRIGHT AND JUNFU HAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS gy of the power industry’s old mascot, Reddy
raised  questions  about  Dug­ Kilowatt.
gan’s ties to Dr. Sonia Hassan, “You’re not supposed to smile at a funeral,
a Wayne State University phy­
sician  who  heads  a  maternal
health  program  the  mayor
supported.
DETROIT’S JEWEL A but this one we can,” said Keith Gunter, 63, of
Livonia,  who  has  been  protesting  nuclear
power since the late 1970s.
The activists were in a buoyant mood be­
Duggan Online court records show
Maher,  who  commonly  goes
by Lori, filed the divorce com­
plaint  Friday.  Novi­based  at­
LITTLE TARNISHED cause of the nuclear industry’s recent finan­
cial struggles, which have brought early clo­
sures  to  several  reactors  across  the  country
and prompted others to seek bailouts.
torney Julia Perkins, a partner
in the Varnum law firm, is list­
Rain, construction, Grand Prix setup make Belle Isle a mess Yet  they  acknowledged  that  their  funeral 

ed  as  having  been  retained. See NUCLEAR, Page 7A

Perkins could not be immedi­ John Gallagher Columnist | Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK 
ately reached for comment.
Maher Information  available Blame it on heavy rains, rising lake lev­
through the court online con­
tains  limited  information els, the Grand Prix setup, or major con­
about  the  divorce  case.  The  record  shows struction projects but Detroit’s Belle Isle Park is a
the  complaint  was  filed  Friday  and  that  a
settlement conference is scheduled for Aug. mess right now. ❚ The good news is that most of the
2.
problems should clear up in time for another sea­
Neither  Duggan’s  spokesman,  John
Roach,  nor  his  chief  of  staff  Alexis  Wiley, son  of  picnics,  family  reunions,  biking,  jogging,
could  be  reached  for  comment  by  the  Free
Press.  The  couple  released  a  statement  to and sunset watching. And the long­term outlook is
several  media  outlets  confirming  they  had for  a  more  ecologically  friendly  environment  for
made  the  painful  decision  to  divorce.  Nu­ High waters from heavy rains Anti-nuclear activists Mark Farris, left, and
merous  attempts  to  obtain  the  statement  wildlife, plant life and human visitors alike. flood picnic areas at the Blue Keith Gunter took part in a “funeral” for
Heron Lagoon on Belle Isle. nuclear power on Tuesday in downtown
See DUGGAN, Page 6A See GALLAGHER, Page 6A MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS Monroe. JC REINDL/DETROIT FREE PRESS

Volume 188 | No. 365 ©2019 $2.50 Weather Inside today’s Free Press

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6A ❚ SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Cover stories
Workers assemble grandstand seating Thursday in advance of the May 31 Grand Prix at Belle Isle. Many residents complain the setup and teardown ruins the island. JUNFU HAN/DFP
Gallagher
Continued from Page 1A
But there are plenty of short­term issues on
Belle Isle just now:
1. Flooding
Heavy  rains  have  left  standing  water  on
grassy  areas  throughout  the  island.  Much  of
the park will be unusable until things dry out in
coming days or weeks.
“Basically we have a lot of pumps on the is­
land,”  said  Karis  Floyd,  the  park  supervisor
with the Michigan Department of Natural Re­
sources. “We open those up to try to pump the
water down. But as you know, not only the De­
troit River but several lakes around the state of
Michigan are flooding over due to the addition­
al  rain.  Hopefully,  we’ll  get  a  few  additional
days with no rain. We can continue to pump it
down and just wait for it to dry out.”
2. It’s Grand Prix time
The annual Detroit Grand Prix is setting up
for  the  three­day  event  beginning May  31.  As
many fans of the island have complained over
the years, the Grand Prix setup and teardown
restricts traffic in various ways until the barri­
ers  and  obstacles  are  finally  removed  in  the
weeks following the race.
3. Electric cable project
DTE Energy is taking over the electrical ser­
vice to the island from the city’s public lighting
department. To do that, DTE is laying new ca­
bles on the island. That has chewed up grassy
areas along the central road through the island
but should be finished soon.
4. Perimeter road; fish habitat plan
In  a  major  construction  project,  crews  are
building a new road bridge along the perimeter
road known as The Strand on the east end of
the island facing Canada.
There,  crews  opened  up  the  shoreline  to
connect the island’s Lake Okonoka to the De­
troit  River  as  part  of  fish  habitat  restoration
work.  Building  the  bridge  over  the  opening
should be done by mid­August, said Amanda
Treadwell of the state’s Department of Natural
Resources. Until then, the perimeter road will
be  closed  through  that  stretch,  but  visitors
should be able to use a shortcut that runs be­
tween the forest on the island and the perim­
Duggan
Continued from Page 1A
from city officials were unsuccessful.  we’ve built over 32 years, proud that our bond
Six  months  ago,  Duggan  and  Maher  de­
fended their marriage after Detroit business­
A flooded picnic area on Belle Isle. Recent heavy rains have caused problems. JUNFU HAN/DFP
The northernmost point on the outer perimeter road is under construction.
MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS
eter road farther along.
5. Road resurfacing
In July, the Michigan Department of Trans­
man Robert Carmack aired surveillance video
showing Duggan and Hassan arriving at the
same suburban residence last year.
“We  decided  to  write  this  statement  to­
gether because we are proud of the marriage
today remains strong, and proud of our goal to
spend the rest of our lives together,” the state­
portation is scheduled to resurface part of the
central  roadway  through  the  woods.  That
stretch  has  been  notorious  for  big,  deep  pot­
holes. The resurfacing should take about two
weeks and close that central roadway through
ment read.
Duggan and Hassan both have repeatedly
refused  to  address  the  nature  of  their  rela­
tionship in recent months.
The City of Detroit and Duggan supported
Hassan’s organization, Make Your Date, with
$358,000 in federal grants from 2015 to 2017
and a fundraising effort in 2017. The Detroit
the woods for that time.
A work in progress
Belle  Isle  has  always  been  a  work  in  pro­
gress.  When  French  settlers  first  reached  the
island  in  the  early  1700s,  it  measured  only
about  three­fourths  its  current  size  of  982
acres — the largest city­owned island park in
the United States. Landfill expanded the island
to its current configuration around 1940.
Over  the  decades,  the  island  evolved  from
mostly forest and marsh to a venue with mul­
tiple recreational and cultural offerings. But as
the City of Detroit’s financial abilities deterio­
rated in the years leading up to the municipal
bankruptcy  in  2013,  maintenance  lagged  at
Belle Isle and other cities parks.
During that period of financial difficulty, the
historic  Aquarium  on  Belle  Isle  had  closed,
restrooms  were  padlocked,  the  canoe  rental
had  long  shuttered,  and  there  were  multiple
other problems.
Restoring the glory
Taken all together, the various repair work
and upgrades now underway are part of a plan
to  restore  the  once­dilapidated  park  to  glory
following  the  takeover  by  DNR  on  a  30­year
lease from the city that began in 2013.
Since then, DNR, the Friends of the Detroit
River,  the  Belle  Isle  Conservancy,  the  Army
Corps  of  Engineers  and  other  players  have
worked on multiple renovation projects.
The island’s Blue Heron Lagoon on the east­
ern end of the island, formerly a closed body of
water, has been opened to the Detroit River as
part of a fish habitat improvement project. Blue
Heron Lagoon has, in turn, been connected to
Lake Okonoka, which has also been opened to
the river.
Thanks  to  donations  and  volunteers,  the
Aquarium has reopened and continues to ex­
pand  its  exhibits.  The  historic  Conservancy,
which,  like  the  Aquarium,  was  designed  by
famed architect Albert Kahn, is also undergo­
ing restoration work today.
DNR has also welcomed recreational offer­
ings,  including  kayak  rentals,  to  the  island.
And there are many more projects in planning
to further restore the island.
So perhaps some short­term inconvenience
is worth it for some long­term gain. At any rate,
fans of Belle Isle are not likely to let a little rain
dampen their enjoyment of a Detroit jewel.
Contact  John  Gallagher:  313­222­5173  or
gallagher@freepress.com.Follow him on Twit­
ter @jgallagherfreep. 
inspector  general  has  opened  an  investiga­
tion into the city’s support of Make Your Date.
“I’m never going to talk about my personal
life, as you well know,” Duggan said at a news
conference last month.
Staff  writer  Kathleen  Gray  contributed  to
this report. 
 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
Still time to make mom happy Windsor: She’s been here all along
Procrastinators have not run entirely out of time and can Columnist looks within to find pieces he’d sought for
still make mom’s day with any of these last­minute gifts.  years since mother’s death; ready to let go, lovingly. 
In Sunday Life, 1D In Sports, 1C

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PAUL WHELAN’S EMPLOYER HAD RUSSIAN TIES FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

Spying case grows Nessel:

curiouser and curiouser More info
SPORTS, 1C
Greene a lesson
in adaptability
needed on
Tigers reliever has coped
with surgeries, doubt, numb
fingers, and succeeded.
nonprofit
Attorney general looking into
program linked to Duggan
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

While Wayne State University officials in­
sist that the Make Your Date nonprofit — un­
der scrutiny for its ties to Detroit Mayor Mike
Duggan — is dormant and inactive, the Michi­
gan  attorney  general  is  questioning  the  or­
ganization’s  nonprofit  status  and  had  been
METRO, 4A
unable  to  get  any  answers  for  nearly  three
Rochelle Riley months.
Inquiries from the attorney general’s office
says goodbye went  ignored  until  Wednesday,  when  Make
Columnist leaving Free Press Your  Date  provided  information  to  the  state
but she will still be fighting about  its  operations  —  hours  after  the  Free
for Detroit’s success. Press published an article about its lack of re­
sponse.
The attorney general’s office is looking into
Make  Your  Date’s  fundraising  practices,  in­
cluding why it is not registered with the state
to solicit charitable donations and where the
donations ended up. 
Kristen Jordan Shamus and Deirdre Shesgreen Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK The  newspaper’s  review  of  Make  Your
Date’s  finances,  organizational  records  and
Paul Whelan, the Michigan businessman accused of spying in Russia, entered fundraising activities shows that Make Your
Date  used  its  nonprofit  status  in  some  in­
the country on a business travel visa supported by BorgWarner Inc., he told his
stances,  including  obtaining  a  federally  is­
lawyers in Moscow.  ❚ Whelan, 49, of Novi was the director of global security sued  logo  used  prominently  in  its  charitable
solicitations.
METRO, 3A for the Auburn Hills­based auto supplier when he traveled to Russia on Dec. 22
Several experts say Make Your Date’s setup
Who is your for the wedding of a friend. He was arrested six days later by the Russian Feder­ is confusing. After reviewing financial docu­
ments obtained by the Free Press, they said it
Shining Light? al Security Service (FSB) and charged with espionage.  ❚ He remains in a pris­
is difficult to reconcile claims of a dormant, in­
Honor those exceptional on  cell  at  Moscow’s  czarist­era Lefortovo  Detention  Facility,  held  without active  nonprofit  with  annual  fundraisers
leaders who are making a Make Your Date has held and also its routinely
much more information about the accusations against him than he knew on
positive impact. updated  registrations  with  state  and  federal
the day when he was initially detained.  See WHELAN, Page 15A agencies that suggest nonprofit activities.
The  debate  over  the  nonprofit  status  of 
USA TODAY NETWORK ILLUSTRATION, PHOTO BY DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV/AP
Inside today’s Free Press See NONPROFIT, Page 16A
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A 3M environmental specialist, in a scath­
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line, among other uses.
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Cover story A Free Press investigation

Nonprofit under scrutiny from Nessel
Continued from Page 1A saying  then,  if  they  have  established  them­
selves with the IRS.”
Make Your Date comes while the Detroit Office Wayne  State  officials  have  given  the  Free
of  Inspector  General  investigates  whether Press varying answers about how Make Your
Make  Your  Date  received  preferential  treat­ Date’s money is handled. They said last De­
ment from Duggan and the city. The probe was cember that Wayne State is Make Your Date’s
launched last month after a Free Press investi­ fiduciary  and  identified  other  nonprofits  for
gation showed the city directed $358,000 in which the university serves in that role. They
federal grants to Make Your Date and Duggan have said Make Your Date is entirely a Wayne
ordered  a  city­led  fundraising  effort  for  the State program. But then in April, a spokesman
program, which aims to prevent preterm birth for Hassan told the Free Press for the first time
in Detroit. that  the  Wayne  State  University  Foundation
The  Duggan  administration  and  Wayne handles some of the organization’s donations.
State officials have been vehement in their po­ Duggan, in defending the city’s support for
sitions that Make Your Date is entirely a uni­ the organization, has joined Wayne State offi­
versity  program  and  that  the  nonprofit  — cials  in  characterizing  Make  Your  Date  as  a
which  happens  to  have  a  similar  name  —  is dormant nonprofit. He predicted the city’s in­
dormant.  City  officials  maintain  the  money spector  general  will  also  find  the  nonprofit
went to Wayne State and not the nonprofit. was  inactive  when  the  city  directed  federal
Days after the first Free Press report, Michi­ grants to Make Your Date between 2015 and
gan  Attorney  General  Dana  Nessel’s  office 2017.
confirmed  that  it,  too,  was  reviewing  issues “I  am 100%  confident  when  the  OIG  does
raised by newspaper. this  they  will  find  a  dormant  nonprofit  that
The  office’s  queries  into  Make  Your  Date never spent any money, never took any mon­
began with a Feb. 13 letter seeking clarification ey, that never ever opened a bank account and
on its registration with the state. The letter re­ Dr. Sonia Hassan, in red, sits with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan during the 2015 fundraising that the City of Detroit in no way did anything
quested a reply within 30 days but went unan­ gala for Hassan’s Make Your Date program at MGM Grand Detroit. MAKEYOURDATE.ORG to support that,” Duggan said at a news con­
swered.  The  office  sent  a  follow­up  letter  on ference last month. “Everything was in direct
April  22  reminding  the  nonprofit  to  respond partnership with the university.”
and advising that it is against Michigan law to troit’s efforts to reduce preterm birth after he partment of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha has not
raise money without proper registration.  was elected in 2013. The Make Your Date non­ The logo is featured in fundraising materials, said when her report on Make Your Date will
In its response to the attorney general’s of­ profit launched in 2014, but it was never oper­ along with descriptions of Make Your Date as be  released.  Some  have  questioned  whether
fice on Wednesday, Make Your Date included ational  because  the  university  took  over  the a nonprofit organization.  Ha, who previously worked in the law depart­
its bylaws and requested an exemption from program,  Wayne  State  officials  have  said. Several experts familiar with nonprofit reg­ ment under Duggan, can be impartial.
requirements  in  state  laws  for  charitable  or­ Make Your Date has raised more than $1.5 mil­ ulations whom the Free Press interviewed ex­ Wayne State and Make Your Date officials
ganizations. lion  since  its  inception,  according  to  Wayne pressed confusion about how the organization earlier this month refused to answer the Free
The Free Press began examining Make Your State. is set up because it has used its nonprofit sta­ Press’ questions seeking clarification on how
Date’s operations and funding several months Make Your Date is designed to help preg­ tus in various ways. Make Your Date solicits donations, where the
ago,  after  possible  conflict  of  interest  issues nant women deliver full­term babies. The or­ Paul  Streckfus,  a  former  IRS  tax  official money goes and how its donations are report­
arose because of revelations about the may­ ganization holds pregnancy education classes who runs an online publication devoted to ex­ ed to the IRS. On Wednesday, Wayne State re­
or’s close ties to its director, Sonia Hassan, a and  says  it  connects  women  to  doctors  and empt organizations, said Wayne State’s affili­ iterated  in  a  statement  its  stance  that  Make
noted  Wayne  State  physician.  Duggan  and midwives,  and  provides  other  medical  ser­ ation  with  Make  Your  Date  is  irrelevant  be­ Your  Date  is  a  university  program  and  not  a
Hassan were seen on surveillance footage last vices. cause donors are writing checks in Make Your nonprofit organization.
year arriving at the same suburban residence. The Make Your Date nonprofit filed paper­ Date’s  name  and  the  nonprofit  entity  has Despite Wayne State’s hesitance to discuss
The video prompted the mayor and his wife to work  with  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  last maintained  its  tax­exempt  status  with  the the inner workings of Make Your Date, an at­
defend their marriage when the video became year to maintain its tax­exempt status and it IRS. torney for Hassan on April 23 threatened the
public in November. filed an annual report with the state. Hassan “The  issue  is  that  they  are  recognized  by Free  Press  with  a  libel  suit,  demanding  the
Duggan’s wife, Lori Maher, filed for divorce also registered a logo with the federal trade­ the IRS as a tax­exempt entity,” said Streck­ newspaper  retract  its  characterization  of 
May 3. mark  office  last  year,  using  the  name  of  the fus, editor of the EO Tax Journal. “It doesn’t
Duggan  handpicked  Hassan  to  lead  De­ nonprofit as registered with the Michigan De­ matter what Wayne State and the others are Continued on next page

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Cover story A Free Press investigation
Continued from previous page
Make Your Date as a nonprofit in previous cov­
erage.
“My  client  is  not  a  public  figure  and  has
never had her reputation attacked before. At
no point does the Free Press story cite a single
case where the nonprofit started by Dr. Has­
san got any money, any support, or any bene­
fit,”  Thomas  Cranmer,  an  attorney  with  the
Miller Canfield firm, wrote April 23 to the gen­
eral counsel for the Free Press’ parent compa­
ny, Gannett. The city has hired Miller Canfield
in  the  past  for  representation,  notably  in  its
municipal  bankruptcy  case  and  the  federal
demolition investigation.
“Dr. Hassan has been libeled, it was done
with malice, and it was done with full knowl­
edge the story was false,” Cranmer wrote. “If
you fail to move quickly to print a full retrac­
tion of the false allegations and apologize in
order to offset some of the damage to Dr. Has­
san’s  reputation,  we  will  take  the  necessary
legal action to clear her name.”
Through its attorney, the Free Press has re­
futed  defamation  and  libel  claims  in  its  re­
sponse to Cranmer. 
Nonprofit experts said it is difficult to un­
derstand officials’ explanation that Make Your
Date is entirely a Wayne State program with
no active nonprofit.
They point to the fact that Make Your Date
has maintained its tax­exempt status with the
IRS and the State of Michigan. And they point
to a logo obtained last year from the U.S. Pat­
ent  and  Trademark  Office,  which  has  been
used  for  fundraisers,  the  program’s  website
and promotional items.
The  fundraising  brochure  for  Make  Your
Date’s 2017 gala instructs donors to make their
checks  out  to  the  Make  Your  Date  Detroit
501(c)(3), one of the IRS’s designations for a
nonprofit organization.
George W. Smith, a certified public accoun­
tant in Southfield who works with nonprofits,
reviewed Make Your Date’s regulatory filings
and fundraising documents and said the or­
ganization’s structure is unclear at best.
“They’ve done an outstanding job of blur­
ring everything to the point (of) how do I tell
you  what’s  right  and  what’s  wrong?”  Smith
said. “If it’s deliberate, they’ve done a hell of a
job and they should print a book on it.”
There  has  been  no  suggestion  that  Make
Your Date or Hassan have misused any funds.
Make Your Date created a brochure in 2017
for its annual gala downtown that sought do­
nations of up to $25,000.
Duggan, as the gala’s honorary chairman,
was featured on the brochure along with co­
median Louie Anderson, who was the head­
lining  act.  Individual  tickets  cost  $250  and
event sponsorships ran between $2,500 and
$25,000.
Insignias for Wayne State, the City of De­
troit and the Detroit Medical Center were in­
cluded in the brochure as the event’s present­
ing sponsors. But nothing on the package in­
dicated Make Your Date is a program run by
Wayne State.
“Make Your Date Detroit is a nonprofit or­
ganization  leading  the  way  to  ensure  every
pregnant  woman  in  every  neighborhood  in
Detroit knows that our great city is stepping
up to ensure she delivers a full­term healthy,
happy baby,” the sponsorship package said.
Legal experts said the brochure is an exam­
ple of how confusing Make Your Date’s struc­
ture  is.  If  Wayne  State  runs  the  Make  Your
Date program, then it should be clear to do­
nors  that  they  are  giving  their  money  to
Wayne State.
“So, to me, that’s the question — who’s real­
ly  soliciting?  Is  Wayne  State  soliciting  or  is
Make Your Date? If Make Your Date is not reg­
istered to do charitable solicitation, then they
shouldn’t be soliciting. Wayne State should be
soliciting,” said Sally Wagenmaker, a Chicago
lawyer who represents nonprofits.
Even  references  to  Make  Your  Date  on
Wayne State’s website are confusing. Despite
the  university’s  insistence  that  Make  Your
Date  is  only  a  program  of  the  university,  its
Wayne State website for accepting donations
describes Make Your Date as a “powerful and
free  nonprofit  program,  offered  through  the
City of Detroit.”
In the financial documents provided by the
university, there is a copy of a $5,000 dona­
tion  from  the  Community  Foundation  of
Greater  Flint  in  2017  that  includes  the  Make
Your  Date  nonprofit’s  federal  tax  identifica­
tion number.
On  its  Facebook  page,  Make  Your  Date  is
classified  as  a  nonprofit  organization.  Infor­
mation about its ties to Wayne State is mini­
mal — visitors to its Facebook page only are
provided boilerplate information about Make
Your Date’s backers.
On the 2017 gala brochure, Make Your Date
is  very  specifically  referred  to  as  a  501(c)(3)
nonprofit. In other public­facing documents it
calls  itself  a  “not­for­profit  organization”  a
designation  that  also  conveys  a  charitable
purpose but has different requirements from a
nonprofit.
“With  the  support  of  the  Mayor’s  office,
major medical institutions, universities, foun­
dations,  and  insurance  companies,  we’ve
built a caring and supportive team dedicated
to turning the tide against dangerous preterm
births,” reads the “Our Story” section of Make
Mayor Mike Duggan said, “I am 100% confident when the OIG does this they will find a dormant nonprofit that never spent any money, never
took any money, that never ever opened a bank account and that the City of Detroit in no way did anything to support that.” MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
Your Date’s Facebook page.
Make Your Date’s 2017 gala brought in tens
of thousands of dollars, but the nonprofit did
not report the income to the IRS in its 2017 tax
return.  coming public announcement involving Make
Make Your Date collected at least $59,000
from  health  care  organizations  and  other
groups  who  sponsored  the  gala  or  bought
tickets to the event.
The  donations  included  a  $25,000  spon­
sorship by DMC and $20,000 from Henry Ford
Health System. Make Your Date financial rec­
ords obtained from Wayne State via the Free­
dom of Information Act do not indicate exact­
ly how many tickets Make Your Date sold for
the gala.
Make Your Date raised a total of $224,105 in
its 2017 fiscal year.
But when Make Your Date filed its 2017 tax
return,  it  reported  that  its  income  was  less
than $50,000.
Hassan spokesman Bill Nowling previously
told the Free Press the Make Your Date non­
profit never opened a bank account or spent “a
single cent.”
“The  nonprofit  never  received  any  funds
from any funder, the city or otherwise,” Now­
ling wrote in an email. “Make Your Date is a
program run by Wayne State University. WSU
manages  all  the  organization’s  finances,  in­
cluding the receiving of outside funding, the
approving of expenses, and maintaining an­
nual budgets.”
Bruce  R.  Hopkins,  author  of  “The  Law  of
Tax­Exempt Organizations” and a professor at
the University of Kansas School of Law, said
Make Your Date should be marketed either as
a university  program  or  a  stand­alone  non­
profit.
“I don’t know quite what’s going on here,”
Hopkins said. “It’s either a program of the uni­
versity  or  it’s  a  separate  nonprofit.  I  haven’t
the faintest idea which way it’s structured.”
A contract  between  Make  Your  Date  and
the Detroit Medical Center in 2017 is also un­
clear about whether Make Your Date was op­
erating as a university program.
The  contract  spelled  out  DMC’s  $25,000
donation  to  sponsor  Make  Your  Date’s  third
annual gala in 2017. DMC received 20 tickets to
the  event,  which  included  cocktails,  dinner
and entertainment, according to the contract,
obtained by the Free Press via the Freedom of
Information Act.
As the recipient of the donation, Make Your
Date was listed on the contract as “Make Your
Date c/o Wayne State University, a nonprofit
organization.” Hassan signed the contract as
director of Make Your Date.  offer donors who give $100,000 or more a spot
Experts  in  nonprofit  regulations  said  the
contract  language  makes  it  difficult  to  tell
whether Make Your Date was a nonprofit enti­
ty  or  a  Wayne  State  program  when  the  con­
tract was signed.
“The way this is written it’s a bit ambigu­
ous,” said William Fournier, of Caplin & Drys­
dale, a Washington, D.C., law firm. “Including
it as ‘care of Wayne State’ suggests that they’re
trying to treat it as a program, but the recipient
signing the contract — signing as director of
Make Your Date — which suggests they’ve got
kind of legal authority to sign as a separate en­
tity,”  said  Fournier,  who  specializes  in  non­
profit tax requirements.
Smith said the contract language is vague,
and that he was unable to tell whether it is de­
liberate.
“Are they lazy, ignorant, (or) they just don’t
know what they’re doing,” he said. “I can’t tell
you enough with any of this to say which way
it is,” he said.
E2
“Are they lazy, ignorant, (or)
they just don’t know what
they’re doing. I can’t tell you
enough with any of this to say
which way it is.”
George W. Smith, a certified public accountant in
Southfield who works with nonprofits, talking about the
Make Your Date nonprofit
Another  sign  that  Make  Your  Date’s  non­
profit is up and running is the program’s use of
a trademarked logo.
The Make Your Date nonprofit corporation
received a trademark certificate in 2018 from
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The  certificate  was  sent  to  “Make  Your
Date, Inc.,” which is the nonprofit corporation
registered with the State of Michigan that city
and Wayne State officials claim has been in­
active since 2014.
Make Your Date’s trademark certificate de­
scribed  its  logo  —  a  baby’s  footprints  inside
pink  and  blue  hearts,  which  is  prominently
displayed  on  the  organization’s  Facebook
page, website and promotional material.
The Make Your Date nonprofit has a seven­
member board currently headed by Hassan’s
sister,  Susan  Hassan.  New  members  have
come and gone since the nonprofit was incor­
porated  in  2014,  according  to  regulatory  fil­
ings.
The  current  board  also  includes  Conrad
Mallett,  CEO  of  DMC  Sinai­Grace  Hospital,
and David Cotton, who was CEO and founder
of Meridian Health Plan until it sold last year
to WellCare Health Plans for $2.5 billion. Nei­
ther  Mallett  nor  Cotton  could  be  reached  for
comment.
A spokesman for Wayne State downplayed
the board’s role.
The board was set up when Make Your Date
launched  and  was  applying  for  tax­exempt
status as a nonprofit organization. Make Your
Date opted to be run as a Wayne State program
instead of an independent nonprofit, spokes­
man  Matt  Lockwood  wrote  in  an  email  last
month.
“Wayne  State  has  never  used  a  board  to
govern the Make Your Date program. We have,
from  time  to  time,  consulted  with  voluntary
advisors  on  the  development  of  the  Wayne
State program, but those meetings were infor­
mal  and  did  not  have  minutes  or  formal  re­
ports,” Lockwood wrote.
Fundraising materials for Make Your Date
on  an  “advisory  board”  and  the  “operating
committee” for the organization. But the ma­
terials aren’t clear on whether those are seats
on the board of directors.
Despite Lockwood’s characterization of the
board  as  idle,  emails  Sonia  Hassan  sent  in
2017 suggest the board influenced Make Your
Date’s operations. The Free Press obtained the
emails through an open records request.
Hassan  weighed  the  board’s  input  when
considering  whether  Make  Your  Date  would
participate  in  the  creation  of  a  directory  for
young expectant mothers.
“We would very much like to partner with
you,” Hassan wrote on Feb. 1, 2017, to a repre­
sentative  of  the  National  Council  of  Jewish
Women. “However, at this point would have to
present the plan of your project and some of
the logistics to our team overall. It’s also likely
our Board members would want to know a bit
more  about  this  project  before  moving  for­
ward  as  it  could  potentially  impact  some  of
FREEP.COM ❚ SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2019 ❚ 17A
our partners — including the one we intend to
work with soon.”
Later that year, in August 2017, Sonia Has­
san anticipated the board’s reaction to an up­
Your Date and SisterFriends, a city initiative.
In  emails  with  Duggan  Chief  of  Staff  Alexis
Wiley  and  Joneigh  Khaldun,  the  city’s  then­
health director, Hassan debated contents of a
news release to announce the partnership.
Hassan wanted to modify the health direc­
tor’s quote in the release because it didn’t “op­
timally capture the spirit of the collaboration
…
“As written it implies that the current pro­
gram ignores the other issues a woman faces
— transportation, social issues, home visiting,
and more — which is not the case. Our pro­
gram,  supporters,  funders  and  board  will  be
surprised  at  the  messaging  —  especially  in
light  of  the  success  of  the  program  thus  far.
Perhaps we could focus on the message as dis­
cussed previously.”
Whether Make Your Date is a Wayne State
program or an independent nonprofit, a board
of directors for an organization its size would
be  expected  to  keep  meeting  minutes,  said
Smith,  the  Southfield  accountant.  If  the  IRS
were to audit Make Your Date, meeting min­
utes  would  be  among  the  first  things  it  re­
quests, Smith said.
“If you don’t have minutes, they’re going to
say you’re not even functioning like a nonprof­
it,” he said. “It’s not a requirement; it’s an ex­
pectation standard. Particularly in something
like this with nonprofits, they would expect to
see minutes.”
Ultimately, the setup for Make Your Date is
irrelevant  when  examining  whether  the  or­
ganization  received  preferential  treatment
from the city, said Leslie Lenkowsky, a profes­
sor  at  the  Indiana  University  Lilly  Family
School of Philanthropy.
“The organizational form doesn’t matter at
all,” Lenkowsky said.
The issue is whether the city’s conflict­of­
interest policies were followed in its support
of Make Your Date, he said.
Viki Harrison, director of state operations
for  the  nonpartisan  grassroots  organization
Common Cause, said the debate about wheth­
er  Make  Your  Date  is  a  nonprofit  or  solely  a
university program doesn’t get at the heart of
the issue, which she said is the appearance of
a conflict of interest.
Common Cause is a national organization
that  advocates  for  open  and  clean  govern­
ment.
“Whether it goes to a nonprofit or a school,
that’s a bunch of background noise,” Harrison
said. “That doesn’t matter. She’s working with
the  program  over  at  Wayne  State,  too.  ...  He
has just put her in a bad situation.”
Harrison, whose expertise includes ethics
and accountability, said elected officials such
as Duggan should always be mindful that the
decisions  they  make  could  raise  ethical  and
morality concerns among their constituents.
“I  think  that  our  elected  officials  in  this
country have to go above and beyond the law
to make sure there are no conflicts of interest
when you are talking about money,” Harrison
said.
Contact  Joe  Guillen  at  313­222­6678  or
jguillen@freepress.com. Contact Kat Stafford
at kstafford@freepress.com or 313­223­4759.
❚ Coming Monday: Charity with close ties to
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan flip­flops on
who handles its money.
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MONDAY, MAY 13, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

2 YEARS INTO 5­YEAR PLAN
Handling
SUPERINTENDENT: of Make
METRO, 4A
Toys on display
WE’RE ON TRACK Your Date
as protest
The installation is critical of
immigration policy that
Vitti touts donations
progress 
refuted
separates families.

in Detroit
schools
President: Foundation has
nothing to do with nonprofit
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

NATION+WORLD, 9A The  nonprofit  prenatal  program  under

Campus security
still debated
A Colorado school guard is a
hero, but experts remain
split how to secure schools.
Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District Nikolai Vitti talks to students about their
concerns at the Student Leadership Development meeting on Friday. KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/DETROIT FREE PRESS
John Wisely
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
Two years after taking the helm of Detroit public
LIFE+MONEY, 1C schools,  Superintendent  Nikolai  Vitti  says  a  reform
plan is on track and the district is returning to “nor­
Secure your malcy” after a decade of emergency management.
The elected school board meets regularly, the bud­
debt­free future get  is  balanced  and  new  systems  are  being  put  in
People who have climbed place to make the business side of the operation work
out of debt offer tips for again.  the  district  is  focused  and  has  a  strong  strategic
others to escape. “We’ve  tackled  a  lot  in  two  years  spanning  from
teacher pay to procurement to our budget, the strate­
gic plan to new curriculum,” he told the Free Press. “I
mean, all those things for most organizations and ad­
Inside today’s Free Press ministrations would take five years to do. We’ve done
❚ Obituaries ............................12A it in two in a district that had no systems or processes
❚ Comics ....................................2C to begin with.”
❚ Puzzles................................4-5C Hiring  Vitti  was  the  first  major  decision  of  the
❚ Movies ....................................6C newly elected school board, which took office in 2017.
“... overall attendance is up. Our vacancies have
improved from 275 when we started to 120 right
now, those are all proof points.”
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti
So far, the board is satisfied with his work, board Presi­
dent Iris Taylor said.
“I think we’ve done very well,” Taylor said. “When
you consider where we were and where we are now,
brand.”
Teachers withhold grade
Teachers are more skeptical and some parents are
taking a wait­and­see approach.
“We’ll hold our grade until we see the outcome of the
See SCHOOL REFORM, Page 7A
scrutiny because of connections between its
director and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has
defended itself by claiming its
donations  were  handled  by
the  Wayne  State  University
Foundation.
But it isn’t true. 
Despite  previous  state­
ments from representatives of
Dr.  Sonia  Hassan  that  dona­ Hassan
tions to the program were han­
dled  by  the  foundation,  its
president told the Free Press it actually has
nothing to do with Make Your Date.
Wayne State University Foundation Presi­
dent Susan Burns said claims the foundation
raised money for Make Your Date were incor­
rect. The foundation is a legally separate en­
tity from the university and handles its en­
dowment,  but  it  is  not  legally  registered  to
seek  charitable  donations  in  the  state  of
Michigan.
“I think they’re confused. I think they mis­
spoke,” Burns told the Free Press last week.
Info filed with attorney general
The shifting explanation for how charita­
ble donations to Make Your Date are handled
comes as the organization is under scrutiny
by the Detroit Inspector General’s Office for
its ties to Duggan and by Michigan Attorney 
See MAKE YOUR DATE, Page 6A

Weather
High 53° ❚ Low 40°
Rain. Forecast, 2A
Despite recalls and deaths, air bags help save lives
Jamie L. LaReau  little time to react at 60 mph.
Detroit Free Press “The  whole  dashboard  was  on  my  legs,”  said
USA TODAY NETWORK
Vaccher.  “I  saw  this  bright  light  and  I  truly  thought

WEAHII-11000v In January 1997, Terri Vaccher saw a bright flash as
she slammed head­on into the trailer of a semi­truck.
She feared the flash of light was her life ending, but
Volume 189 | No. 9 ©2019 $2.50
it was the exact opposite.
Home delivery pricing inside
Subscribe: 800­395­3300
Vaccher, who was 30 and eight months pregnant,
Classified: 586­977­7500;  was in her Ford Explorer SUV on a freeway in Irvine,
800­926­8237 California, that day when a tractor­trailer in front of
her jackknifed and spun out across all lanes. She had
that I was going to die, but that light was actually the
air bag coming out.”
The  impact  of  the  air  bag  burned  her  arms  and
slammed  her  into  the  seat,  where  her  seat  belt
cinched up hard to hold her in place.
She broke her left leg and knee and her right ankle. An air bag saved Terri Vaccher, who was 8
Rescuers  spent  an  hour  using  the  jaws  of  life  to  months pregnant when the Ford Explorer SUV
slammed into the trailer of a semi-truck in
See AIR BAGS, Page 6A Irvine, Calif. TERRI VACCHER

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6A ❚ MONDAY, MAY 13, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Cover stories
Make Your Date
Continued from Page 1A
General  Dana  Nessel  for  its  fundraising
practices.
On May 8, Make Your Date submitted a re­
quest  to  the  attorney  general’s  office  for  ex­
emption  from  requirements  in  state  laws  for
charitable  organizations.  The  request  was
submitted hours after the Free Press reported
that day that Make Your Date had ignored the
office’s prior inquires about its operations.
The Free Press began examining Make Your
Date’s operations and funding several months
ago,  after  possible  conflict  of  interest  issues
arose  because  of  revelations  about  the  may­
or’s close ties to its director, Hassan, a noted
Wayne State physician.
Duggan  handpicked  Hassan  to  lead  De­
troit’s efforts to reduce preterm birth after he
was  elected  in  2013.  As  a  result,  Make  Your
Date  was  launched  in  2014.  It  is  designed  to
help pregnant women deliver full­term babies.
The  organization  holds  pregnancy  education
classes and says it connects women to doctors
and  midwives,  and  provides  other  medical
services.
Burns’ admission that the foundation is not
involved in Make Your Date contradicts previ­
ous  statements  made  by  others  to  the  Free
Air bags
Continued from Page 1A
extricate her, but “nothing from my belly up”
was injured. Two days later she gave birth to a
premature,  but  healthy,  boy  she  named  Do­
minic.
“I’m just very, very grateful,” said Vaccher. “I
absolutely believe, had I not had an air bag and
my seat belt on, I never would have survived
that.”
Vaccher’s  experience  illustrates  what  data
show: Working air bags save lives.
Which isn’t to say air bags are without trou­
bles. A typical air bag deploys at 200 mph, said
Becky  Mueller,  senior  research  engineer  with
the  Insurance  Institute  for  Highway  Safety.
People have been hurt by them. In recent years,
millions of vehicles have been recalled for de­
fective air bags that killed at least 24 people.
Still,  properly  functioning  air  bags  greatly
increase the odds of surviving a severe crash,
especially if the driver follows other basic safe­
ty rules.
The recalls
If people get a recall notice for a defective air
bag, safety experts say it is critical to go to a
dealership and get it repaired, which is free, as
soon as possible.
“The horror of this type of defect is that you
don’t  need  it  until  you  need  it,
and  when  you  do  need  it,  it’s
now  going  to  be  hurting  you,”
said Jason Levine, executive di­
rector  of  the  Center  for  Auto
Safety  in  Washington,  D.C.  “A
defective  safety  product  is  just
Mueller as terrible as defective brakes or
a  steering  wheel  that  prevents
steering.”
The most publicized air bag defect has been
the Takata recall. In fact, the National Highway
Traffic  Safety  Administration  has  dubbed  it
“the largest and most complex safety recall in
U.S. history.”
It  involves  vehicles  made  by  19  different
automakers  and  more  than  41.6  million  vehi­
cles in the United States. Those
cars  were  recalled  to  replace
frontal  air  bags,  made  by  parts
supplier  Takata.  The  air  bags
were mostly installed in 2002­15
model year cars. Some of those
air bags could deploy explosive­
Levine ly, injuring or even killing occu­
pants.  At  the  end  of  March,
NHTSA reports that, worldwide,
300 have been hurt by the air bags in addition
to the 24 deaths.
In addition:  ry. The air bag in the steering wheel exploded in
❚ Last  month,  U.S.  auto  safety  regulators
said they were investigating about 12.3 million
air bags made by auto supplier ZF­TRW and in­
stalled in vehicles from Fiat Chrysler, Honda,
Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi and Toyota. These air
bags may have failed to deploy in crashes in­
volving at least eight deaths. The air bags are
used  in  model­year  vehicles  2010­19,  said  a
government document.
❚ On May 6, NHTSA said that two owners of
the Mazda CX­9 large SUV complained that the
side curtain air bags can inflate for no reason.
Four  people  were  hurt  in  one  of  those  cases.
Regulators are investigating the complaint and
said the probe covers CX­9s from the 2010­13
model years. Investigators will determine the
possibility of a recall.  frontal air bags did injure a lot of people, ex­
Lives saved
Frontal air bags have been standard equip­
Press  during  its  months­long  investigation
concerning  possible  conflict  of  interest  be­
cause of to ties between Hassan, its director,
and Duggan.
Foundation role repeated claim
The involvement of the Wayne State Foun­
dation  in  Make  Your  Date’s  fundraising  was
central  to  claims  from  Hassan’s  representa­
tives that Make Your Date was not operating
as  a  nonprofit  program  when  it  received
$358,000 in federal grants from the city and
other  donations  that  totaled  more  than  $1.5
million since 2014.
The Free Press reported last week that the
Michigan attorney general is questioning the
organization’s nonprofit status and had been
unable  to  get  any  answers  for  nearly  three
months.  Several  experts  interviewed  by  the
newspaper  said  Make  Your  Date’s  setup  is
confusing  and  that  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile
claims  of  a  dormant,  inactive  nonprofit  with
annual fundraisers Make Your Date has held.  puts out there? No,” Nowling said, emphasiz­
Officials have said that money was not re­
ported  to  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  be­
cause  Make  Your  Date  is  a  Wayne  State  pro­
gram and not a nonprofit organization.
But in its investigation into Make Your Date
and  the  organization’s  nonprofit  status,  the
Free  Press  obtained  a  2017  fundraising  bro­
chure  that  referred  to  Make  Your  Date  as  a
“I’m just very, very grateful,” said Terri Vaccher. “I absolutely believe, had I not had an air bag and my seat belt on, I never would have survived
that.” Vaccher gave birth to her son two days after this crash in 1997.
ment in all cars since model year 1998 and in all
SUVs, pickups and vans since model year 1999.  Air  bag  injuries  today  are  typically  minor
Air bags reduce the chance of an upper body
or  head  injury  during  a  crash.  According  to
NHTSA data:
❚ In frontal crashes, frontal air bags reduce
driver fatalities by 29 percent and fatalities of
front­seat  passengers  age 13  and  older  by  32
percent.  mph,  your  air  bag  doesn’t  deploy  because
❚ NHTSA estimates that the combination of
an air bag plus a seat belt reduces the risk of
death in frontal crashes by 61 percent.
❚ From  1987­2015,  frontal  air  bags  saved
44,869 lives.
❚ In  2016,  air  bags  are  esti­
mated to have saved 2,756 peo­
ple.  ❚ Wear the seat belt. It helps save lives and
One of those lives was Lynne
McChristian. Early one morning
in September 1999, McChristian
was driving to work in Tampa.
McChristian As she turned left, an oncom­
ing car plowed into the passen­
ger side of her new Toyota Cam­
her face and her seat belt constricted with such
force it broke her collarbone, she said. The car
was totaled, but she was alive. She credits her
life mostly to the air bag.  Vaccher, 22. Terri was 8 months pregnant
“The  seat  belt  alone  might  not  have  been
enough to prevent further damage to me,” said
McChristian,  a  spokeswoman  for  the  Insur­
ance  Information  Institute,  a  trade  group  fo­
cused on insurance education. “I could have hit
that steering wheel with the force of that im­
pact. That could have meant severe head trau­
ma and facial damage.”
Sometimes, the force required to quickly in­
flate air bags can injure people if they are seat­
ed  too  close  to  the  air  bag  before  it  deploys,
IIHS’s  Mueller  said.  The  first  generations  of
perts say, because they deployed with greater
force than those on later model cars.
NHTSA  estimates  that  more  than  290
deaths were the result of frontal air bag infla­
501(c)(3),  one  of  the  IRS’s  designations  for  a
nonprofit organization.
Although the brochure instructed donors to
make their checks out to the Make Your Date
Detroit  501(c)(3),  Hassan  spokesman  Bill
Nowling  claimed  last  month  that  the  Wayne
State  University  Foundation  collected  the
money.  also  came  from  Hassan’s  attorney,  Thomas
“The 501(c)(3) referred to is the WSU Foun­
dation,” Nowling wrote in an April 3 email to
the Free Press. “Make Your Date Detroit is the
name the WSU Foundation used to solicit for
the WSU­run program.”
Mistakes were made
When told of the foundation president’s de­
nial, Nowling said last week that his previous
claim about the foundation’s fundraising role
was taken from a Wayne State website that in­
dicated  online  donations  to  Make  Your  Date
would be processed by the foundation.
“Do  I  verify  every  fact  that  Wayne  State
ing  that  Hassan  is  his  client  and  not  Wayne
State. “I assume they’re correct.”
The  website  Nowling  was  referring  to  has
been  edited  to  remove  the  reference  to  the
foundation.  Nowling  said  he  did  not  know
anything  about  the  edits  to  Wayne  State’s
website for its fundraising platform, Warrior­
Funder.
Terri Vaccher, 52, poses with her son, Dominic
with Dominic when an air bag saved them in
an crash with a semi-truck’s trailer.
PHOTOS BY TERRI VACCHER
tion  in  low­speed  crashes  from  1990­2008.
Most of those deaths were in vehicles made be­
fore 1998, and more than 80 percent of people
killed were not wearing a seat belt.
But  in  recent  years,  advanced  government
requirements have made serious injuries from
properly functioning air bags rare. Technology
has  helped  too.  Sensors  enable  air  bags  to
know if a 100­pound person is sitting close to
the air bag or a 200­pound person is reclined in
a seat, and “they can adjust to how soon, fast
and how stiff that air bag deploys by those sen­
A Wayne State spokesman said Wednesday
that references to the foundation were a mis­
take that was noticed the week prior and were
removed. He did not indicate exactly when the
changes were made. 
Claims about the Wayne State Foundation’s
role  in  handling  Make  Your  Date’s  donations
Cranmer of the Miller Canfield firm.
In an April 23 letter to the Free Press threat­
ening a libel suit, Cranmer wrote that all of the
organization’s  fundraising  had  been  done
solely through the university foundation.
“All charitable donations made to the Make
Your  Date  program  from  its  inception  have
gone  exclusively  to  the  Wayne  State  Univer­
sity Foundation,” Cranmer wrote. “... The WSU
Foundation runs fundraising campaigns for all
aspects of the university.”
Cranmer had a different assessment of the
foundation involvement last week when told
of Burns’ comments that it is not tied to Make
Your Date.
“Wayne State University handles the finan­
cial transactions for Make Your Date through
its  infrastructure.  Wayne  State  University  is
itself a 501(c)(3) and raised all of the money for
Make  Your  Date.  WSU  processed  the  gifts  to
Make Your Date and WSU issued the donor re­
ceipts,” Cranmer wrote in the email.
Free Press staff writer Gina Kaufman con­
tributed to this report.
sors,” said Mueller.
and far less life threatening than the situation
the  person  would  have  faced  without  an  air
bag, Mueller said.
“But we understand it could be a dangerous
thing  in  the  wrong  context,”  said  Mueller.
“That’s  why  if  you’re  in  a  fender  bender  at  5
there’s some risk in that” deployment.
Sensing a crash
Here are some safety tips drivers and pas­
sengers  should  follow  when  driving  in  a  car
with air bags: 
minimize injury.
❚ Shorter people should maintain 10 inches
between  the  steering  wheel  and  their  chest.
The first 2 inches of an air bag deploying have
the most force.
❚ Never put your feet on the dashboard.
❚ Hold the steering wheel at the 3­and­9 or
4­and­7 positions and do not have your hands
on the center part marked “air bag.” 
❚ Pay attention to the road to avoid a colli­
sion in the first place.
Finally, safety experts say government tests
air bags regularly to ensure they are as protec­
tive as possible, because if a person is in a high­
speed  crash,  that  person  is  better  protected
with a functioning air bag than without one.
“They are a highly tuned feature on your car
that is far more intelligent than you can imag­
ine,”  said  Mueller.  “They  can  sense  a  crash
within milliseconds of hitting another vehicle
or object. Air bags can deploy between 10 to 40
milliseconds of having a crash — that’s a blink
of an eye.”
Contact  Jamie  L.  LaReau:  313­222­2149  or
jlareau@freepress.com.  Follow  her  on  Twitter
@jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and
sign up for our autos newsletter.
 O N G U A R D F O R 1 8 8 Y E A R S

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

City ordered emails deleted
Fundraisers on charity tied to Free Press was preparing to publish its initial
investigative report on the nonprofit, a former
Duggan told to remove them city official told the newspaper.
The city’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford Lawrence Garcia, confirmed on Thursday eve­
Detroit Free Press ning  that  emails  related  to  Make  Your  Date
USA TODAY NETWORK
were deleted. Garcia did not give the circum­
stances under which the emails were deleted
City  of  Detroit  employees  were  ordered  to or how many documents were involved. But he
delete emails to conceal the extent of the city’s said Mayor Mike Duggan issued a new execu­
support for the Make Your Date program as the tive order last week to clarify the city’s rules for
preserving emails.
The  former  city  official  told  the  Free  Press
that two workers in the Detroit Office of Devel­
opment and Grants who conducted fundrais­
ing for Make Your Date were instructed to de­
lete  their  emails  related  to  the  prenatal  care
program and its director, Dr. Sonia Hassan. De­
leted emails were later recovered once admini­
stration officials reversed the order, she said.
Both the Michigan Attorney General’s Office
and Detroit Inspector General now are looking
into the deleted emails.
Both  offices  previously  launched  inquiries
into Make Your Date after a Free Press investi­
gation in April revealed that the city provided
the program with more than $350,000 in fed­
eral  grants  and  that  Duggan  ordered  a  fund­
raising campaign for it in 2017. The city’s sup­
port for the program raised questions because
Duggan was seen last year meeting Hassan af­
See EMAILS, Page 7A

40 YEARS AFTER WHITE SOX-TIGERS DEBACLE

Trump backs
Disco Demolition event stirred off on census
question
culture wars still being fought But he orders agencies
to gather citizenship data
David Jackson and Ledyard King
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON  –  President  Donald

Trump on Thursday dropped efforts to get a
citizenship question on the 2020 census and
said he would use other means to seek infor­
mation  about  the  number  of  noncitizens  in
the country.
Declaring an executive order directing ev­
ery  federal  department  to  provide  any  citi­

See CENSUS, Page 3A

FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

Fans storm the field at Chicago’s White Sox Park on Disco Demolition night July 12, 1979, after the first game of a doubleheader between the
White Sox and Detroit Tigers. The radio station promotion turned into a melee after hundreds of disco records were blown up on the field. AP

Disastrous promotion should More in Sports ond game.

“I was still a young kid and I was like ‘Real­
not be celebrated, some say ❚ 4 reasons to still care about the Tigers, 1B ly?’ ”  said  Petry,  now  a  TV  baseball  broad­

Joe Lapointe
Special to Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
Forty years ago today, when Dan Petry was a
rookie pitcher for the DetroitTigers, his second
road trip took him to Chicago’s Comiskey Park
for  a  scheduled  twi­night  doubleheader
against  the  White  Sox  on Disco  Demolition
Night.
He didn’t expect the explosion of vinyl disco
records, the fire in center field, the fans storm­
ing  the  field,  the  clouds  of  marijuana  smoke,
the clods of turf kicked up, the cops with billy
clubs clearing the field or the forfeit of the sec­
caster for Fox Sports Detroit. “ ‘This is what
happens in the big leagues? They blow stuff
up  in  between  games  and  fans  charge  the
field and police have to come out?’ ”
Petry — perhaps with tongue in cheek —
recalled how naïve he was when a youthful,
partying  crowd,  far  larger  than  capacity,  ment say the cars are safe. Read our full investiga-
See DISCO DEMOLITION, Page 11A
OUT OF GEAR
A Free Press investigation found that Ford know-
ingly put two cars on the road — the Fiesta and
Focus — with flawed transmissions. Fifty injuries
have been reported, but Ford and the U.S. govern-
tion at freep.com and in a six-page special report
in Sunday’s Free Press.

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Home delivery pricing inside
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Cover story / Metro
REGION/MICHIGAN
Police: Mom who drove girls  lived. McClinton drove into the Kalamazoo Riv­
into river tried poison first
KALAMAZOO – Authorities say a Michigan
woman  killed  herself  and  twin  daughters  by
driving  into  a  river  after  trying  to  poison  the
children.
Kalamazoo  police  released  reports  saying
Ineza McClinton, 44, tried to make 9­year­old
twins, Angel and Faith, drink juice with added
antifreeze  in  the  spring.  McClinton’s  mother
told  investigators  about  the  plan,  which  in­
cluded  Ineza  McClinton’s  attempt  to  die  by
overdosing on pills.
Relatives  told  police  they  intervened  in
McClinton’s  suicide  attempt  and  discovered
her unsuccessful effort to poison the girls.
Police say information about the attempted
poisoning wasn’t reported to officers in Grand
Rapids,  where  McClinton  and  her  daughters
Emails
Continued from Page 1
ter hours at a suburban home.  ees to delete their emails related to Make Your
Attorney  General  Dana  Nessel  instructed
her  criminal  division  to  look  into  the  allega­
tions  of  deleted  emails  after  the  issue  was
brought to her personal attention, her spokes­
woman  said  this  week.  Nessel  personally
weighed in after her criminal division chief ini­
tially deferred the deleted email complaints to
the Detroit Inspector General.
“The attorney general directed our criminal
division to reopen the file,” spokeswoman Kelly
Rossman­McKinney  said.  “She  was  adamant
that we take a very active role in this.”
Kennedy Shannon, the former assistant di­
rector who initially made the allegations, said
in an interview that one of the employees ap­
proached her in April to talk about the deleted
emails, days after publication of the Free Press’
investigation  into  Make  Your  Date  and  Dug­
gan’s ties to Hassan. As an assistant director in
the Detroit Office of Development and Grants,
Shannon worked alongside the employees told
to delete their emails.
“I definitely think it’s a cover­up,” Shannon
said, “and I think it’s an attempt to hide the fact
that  more  city  resources  were  spent  ...  than
what the mayor said they were.”
Duggan and Detroit Chief Financial Officer
Dave Massaron in May learned about the pos­
sibility some emails related to Make Your Date
had been deleted, according to Garcia.
“CFO  Massaron  promptly  took  the  lead  in
the effort to recover the emails. To the best of
our  knowledge,  the  deleted  emails  were  suc­
cessfully  retrieved,”  Garcia  said  in  a  written
statement  to  the  Free  Press.  “Approximately
two months ago, the Office of Inspector Gener­
al was informed of the circumstances and was
provided the emails recovered.”
Shannon described in written complaints to
the Detroit Inspector General and the Attorney
General’s office how her co­workers were told
to delete their Make Your Date emails.
“I have personal knowledge that leadership
of the Office of Development and Grants asked
staff members to delete emails in an attempt by
the  Mayor’s  office  to  hide  facts  regarding  the
(city’s)  true  efforts  regarding  fundraising  for
this  organization,”  Shannon’s  May  31  written
complaint  to  the  Attorney  General’s  office
reads.
The Attorney General’s Office responded to
Kennedy on July 3 and said it would defer to
the Detroit Inspector General.
“I reached out to that office, and was advised
that  they  do  in  fact  have  an  open  file  on  this
matter,”  criminal  division  chief  Richard  Cun­
ningham  wrote  to  Shannon  in  a  letter.  “Since
the  Inspector  General  is  already  looking  into
your assertions, this office will defer to their ac­
tions.”
Rossman­McKinney said the Attorney Gen­
eral’s Office received two complaints from city
employees related to Make Your Date. She con­
firmed new letters would be sent to the employ­
ees now that Nessel has reopened the inquiry.
“Once the issue was brought to the attorney
general’s personal attention, she directed Cun­
ningham to reopen the file,” Rossman­McKin­
ney said. “We are definitely looking into their
complaints.”
The  Detroit  Office  of  Inspector  General
would  not  comment  on  its  investigation  in­
volving deleted emails.
“Any interviews conducted as part of an on­
going  OIG  investigation  would  be  considered
confidential and therefore we would not have a
comment,”  Deputy  Inspector  General  Kamau
Marable said.
The  inspector  general’s  inquiries  into  the
deleted emails appear to be part of its broader
probe into whether the city and Duggan gave
preferential treatment to Make Your Date.
Viki  Harrison,  director  of  state  operations
for  the  nonpartisan  grassroots  organization
Common  Cause,  said  city  employees  being
asked to delete emails is the “most basic, un­
ethical thing” government officials could ask of
subordinates. Common Cause is a national or­
ganization  that  advocates  for  open  and  clean
government.
er on June 17 after letting out two granddaugh­
ters. Relatives say she sought help for depres­
sion and took prescription drugs for mental ill­
nesses.
2 Detroit workers injured by 
fireworks under toilet seats
DETROIT – Authorities say two Detroit city
workers were injured after fireworks went off
under toilet seats at a garage where fire equip­
ment is repaired.
Police say the men, ages 59 and 41, suffered
unspecified injuries and were treated at a hos­
pital  following  the  Wednesday  morning  inci­
dents. A police report describes the fireworks
as some type of “poppers” and says they were
placed under at least one toilet seat. It says the
victims sat down and set off the poppers.
Mayor Mike Duggan made an executive order last week on rules on preserving documents. On
Thursday, it was revealed some workers had been told to delete emails. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
“That’s  just  shocking,”  Harrison  said.  “I
mean  deleting  emails  is  just  the  absolute
worst, I think, because there’s no other reason
to do it than to try to hide something. There is
no  reason  to  delete  an  email  other  than  pre­
venting them (the press or public) from finding
out the truth. And if you haven’t done anything
wrong, why would you do that? I can imagine
the city attorneys would just have a heart at­
tack if they know employees are doing this.”
Harrison also questioned whether it raises
any potential legal concerns for the city.
“They  know  that’s  wrong,”  Harrison  said.
“There’s  a  reason  why  places  have  retention
records. I’m not a lawyer but I would definitely
talk to lawyers, because that could absolutely
be illegal. It’s most certainly unethical. … Quite
frankly, if they were told to do this in this in­
stance,  the  first  thought  I  had  is,  how  wide­
spread is this?”
The city has policies that set rules for how
public records can be destroyed. Detroit’s pol­
icy prior to Duggan’s new executive order in­
corporated records retention requirements es­
tablished by the state.
General  correspondence  records  —  which
city  emails  are  often  classified  as  —  must  be
preserved for at least two years, according to
the state policy followed by the City of Detroit.
The policy states that “records cannot be de­
stroyed  unless  their  disposition  is  authorized
by an approved retention and disposal sched­
ule.”
Furthermore, records cannot be disposed of
if they are part of a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request, investigation or lawsuit.
The  Attorney  General’s  Office  also  has  an
ongoing review of Make Your Date’s nonprofit
status.  Make  Your  Date  has  held  fundraisers
and raised more than $1.5 million since its in­
ception in 2014, yet it has not registered with
the  state  to  solicit  donations.  Hassan,  who
runs  Make  Your  Date,  has  said  through  a
spokesman  that  the  program  is  run  through
Wayne  State  University  and  is  not  a  stand­
alone  nonprofit.  Duggan  has  echoed  those
statements about Make Your Date’s structure
as a WSU program and not a stand­alone non­
profit.
But a Make Your Date fundraising pitch in
July 2018 described the organization as an in­
dependent nonprofit that relies on WSU to act
as a fiduciary that handles its money. “Current­
ly, MYD, a separate 501c3, is housed at the De­
troit Medical Center and Wayne State Univer­
sity is its fiduciary,” the pitch reads.
What prompted order to delete?
Shannon said it was a FOIA request earlier
this year, around February, that preceded the
order to delete emails.
Once details of Duggan’s relationship with
Hassan  and  the  city’s  support  for  Make  Your
Date were published by the Free Press in April,
one of the city employees tasked with raising
The men work in Detroit’s General Services of the Indiana state line and died in the 1830s.
Department. The remains were found during a retention
The suspected prank is under investigation.  pond excavation.
Skeletal remains of 5 unearthed in
Sturgis may be of early settlers
STURGIS – Officials say skeletal remains of
two  children  and  three  adults  unearthed  in
southwestern Michigan may be those of early
settlers of an area community.
The recently unearthed remains in Sturgis
are  being  evaluated  by  forensic  anthropolo­
gists  at  Western  Michigan  University.  Geoff
Smith, the director of public safety for Sturgis,
says research is ongoing to determine whether
there’s a connection to an old burial site.
Local historians want to know whether the
remains may be those of a Revolutionary War
veteran who later settled in the area just north
money for Make Your Date became upset about
having followed orders months earlier to delete
her emails.
The employee was the city’s main fundrais­
er for Make Your Date for about a year, accord­
ing to Shannon. The employee reached out to
about 50 organizations on behalf of Make Your
Date, including the Carls Foundation, a Bloom­
field Hills charity that gave Make Your Date a
$51,285 grant last October.
The Free Press reached out to the employee
through her attorney, but the attorney declined
to comment.
The  employee’s  extensive  fundraising  ef­
forts conflict with the Duggan administration’s
public statements about the city’s support of
Make Your Date.
Duggan’s chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, vehe­
mently denied that the city raised any money
for  Make  Your  Date  when  asked  by  the  Free
Press in March.
Wiley insisted the city’s efforts were unsuc­
cessful after the Free Press obtained an email
showing Duggan ordered the city’s chief devel­
opment  official,  Ryan  Friedrichs,  to  launch  a
fundraising campaign for Make Your Date.
Wiley said the city “made a number of pre­
liminary  inquiries”  on  behalf  of  Make  Your
Date, including sending concept papers to the
Skillman Foundation and Children’s Hospital.
Wayne State, however, decided it didn’t need
the  city’s  help  because  its  philanthropy  staff
could handle the fundraising, according to Wi­
ley.
“As far as Make Your Date, neither Mr. Frie­
drichs nor (his office) raised any philanthropic
money for Make Your Date,” Wiley wrote in an
e­mail to the Free Press on March 29.
But the fundraising work by the employees
who raised money for Make Your Date contra­
dicts  Wiley’s  statements.  So  does  a  letter
signed by Duggan last July seeking support for
Make  Your  Date  from  the  Carls  Foundation.
The  Free  Press  obtained  Duggan’s  letter
through a public records request.
Elizabeth  Stieg,  executive  director  of  the
Carls Foundation, which gave Make Your Date
the $51,285 grant, said the first call came from
the  Detroit  mayor’s  office  in  February  2018.
Make Your Date initially sought $100,000 from
the Carls Foundation, records obtained by the
Free Press show.
“There was an inquiry from the mayor’s of­
fice by phone call, then Wayne State called us
and said, ‘Let’s have a meeting on this,’ ” Stieg
said.
Duggan wrote to Stieg in his letter: “On be­
half of The City of Detroit, I would like to ex­
press  my  full  support  for  Make  Your  Date’s
(MYD) proposal submission to The Carls Foun­
dation  to  expand  their  services  and  preterm
birth reduction strategy across the City of De­
troit.”
WXYZ­TV  (Channel  7)  first  reported  the
city’s  involvement  in  the  Carls  Foundation
grant to Make Your Date.
FREEP.COM ❚ FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2019 ❚ 7A
 
Potter Park Zoo in Lansing
mourns death of Alaskan moose
LANSING – A moose at the Potter Park Zoo
has died, zoo officials confirmed Thursday. 
Meeko,  a  male  Alaskan  moose,  died
Wednesday night after he began treatment last
month  for  a  rare  form  of  cancer.  A  cause  of
death has yet to be determined.
“I can confidently say we did everything we
can,” Cynthia Wagner, the zoo’s director, said
of the staff ’s effort to save him. 
Orphaned in Alaska, Meeko was rescued by
wildlife managers and brought to the Lansing
zoo in 2014.
– Associated Press
Wiley’s  initial  denial  that  the  city  raised
money for Make Your Date is part of a broader
effort  to  minimize  the  magnitude  of  city  re­
sources directed to Make Your Date, Shannon
said. That effort includes the orders to employ­
Date, she said.
Shannon said the Inspector General’s Office
interviewed her in May about the order to de­
lete  emails.  Shannon  said  she  gave  the  office
names of the two employees who were told to
delete their emails. Shannon then joined one of
the  employees  when  she  was  summoned  a
couple  weeks  later  by  the  inspector  general’s
office  to  discuss  the  deleted  Make  Your  Date
emails.
Shannon  filed  her  complaint  with  the  in­
spector general at a time she felt that she was
being unfairly punished at work.
As  assistant  director  of  grants,  Shannon
was  in  charge  of  approving  expenditures  for
Motor  City  Match,  an  assistance  program  for
small  businesses.  The  U.S.  Department  of
Housing and Urban Development issued a re­
port in September that identified several ele­
ments of the program that are out of compli­
ance  with  federal  requirements.  City  officials
said they updated Motor City Match’s policies
and procedures and have developed a strategy
to address HUD’s findings.
Shannon  said  she  felt  some  of  the  Motor
City  Match  expenditures  were  improper  and
refused to sign off on them. At the same time,
she  was  gathering  documents  related  to  the
small  business  program  and  working  behind
the scenes with a television reporter to expose
problems with Motor City Match.
On  May 1,  Shannon  was  suspended  for  30
days, she said, for allegedly getting paid while
she wasn’t working. Shannon said the suspen­
sion was unfounded. She said she was getting
paid while not at work because she was absent
under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The
real reason she was suspended, Shannon said
she believes, is because her bosses suspected
her of feeding information to the media about
Motor City Match.
Before  her  suspension  ended,  on  May  23,
Shannon was told she would be fired as of June
1.  Shannon  said  there  were  a  hodgepodge  of
reasons given — including documents saved to
her  work  computer  related  to  her  small  busi­
ness selling waist trainers and hair extensions.
Shannon  said  she  worked  on  the  small  busi­
ness  during  her  lunch  hour.  She  believes  she
was fired because she was digging into the of­
fice’s work on Make Your Date and because she
wouldn’t  approve  funding  for  the  Motor  City
Match program.
The day after she was suspended, Shannon
said she contacted the Office of Inspector Gen­
eral  to  discuss  problems  in  the  Motor  City
Match program. At a subsequent meeting with
an OIG investigator on May 9 to discuss Motor
City Match, Shannon also described how work­
ers in her office were told to delete their emails
related to Make Your Date.
As  the  OIG  began  looking  into  Shannon’s
claims about the deleted emails, the Free Press
put in a public records request for emails relat­
ed  to  Make  Your  Date  that  were  sent  and  re­
ceived by the employees who were ordered to
delete them.
The day after the FOIA request for the em­
ployees’  emails,  Friedrichs  called  a  meeting
with those employees to discuss the prior di­
rective to delete the messages, Shannon said.
At the meeting, Friedrichs apologized and said
the emails would be recovered.
The city would not grant an interview to dis­
cuss  orders  given  to  employees  to  delete
emails.
Shannon  said  the  administration  was
wrong to order subordinates to delete records.
She said the order upset one of the employees.
“Right is right and wrong is wrong, right?,”
Shannon said. “And then what also pissed me
off was that you went and asked subordinates
to  delete  emails,  which  is  just  a  messed  up
thing to do. ... To put somebody in a position
like that to protect your girlfriend or whoever
she is to you — just wasn’t a good thing.”
To read previous coverage about Make Your
Date go to https://www.freep.com/news/
investigations/
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SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

An 80-year-old Detroit woman lived in filth. OBITUARY

Nobody knew until she was found dead, eaten by her dog.
Longtime
El Paso police Sgt. Robert
Gomez briefs reporters
Saturday after a shooting
‘Unfathomable’ Oakland
executive
in El Paso, Texas. JOEL ANGEL
JUAREZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Patterson
20 SHOT
DEAD IN dies at 80
John Wisely
EL PASO Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

RETAIL L. Brooks Patterson, the wise-cracking,

hard-drinking former prosecutor who
CENTER ruled Oakland County for a generation,
died of pancreatic cancer at
5:30 a.m Saturday at his In-
Cedar Attanasio dependence Township
and Diana Heidgerd home. He was 80.
ASSOCIATED PRESS A native Detroiter known
for bashing his hometown,
EL PASO, Texas – Twen- often in racially charged
ty people were killed and terms, Patterson had been Patterson
more than two dozen in- in declining health since a
jured in a shooting Satur- 2012 auto accident forced
day in a busy shopping area him to use a wheelchair most of the time.
in the Texas border town of He announced his diagnosis of stage 4
El Paso, the state’s gover- Linda Kajma, seated, and friend and colleague Tamara Tracy are shown June 23 inside the family cancer in a March 26 news conference at
nor said. room of Sally and Lorraine Honeycheck during a cleaning of the house. The house was full of items the county’s executive office building,
The police chief said like old newspapers, torn mattresses covered in rat droppings, stacked dishes and uneaten food, which bears his name.
among the possibilities be- making it hard for Kajma to dig through and find valuable possessions, insurance forms, money Patterson’s personality and his brand of
ing investigated is whether and other important items left behind when Sally died. Republicanism — tough-on-crime, low
it was a hate crime. Two taxes, good services and an aggressive
law enforcement officials courtship of business investment and
who spoke to The Associat- Story by Tresa Baldas | Photos by Eric Seals Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK housing sprawl — made him unbeatable in
ed Press on condition of Michigan’s wealthiest county, even as

A
anonymity identified the changing demographics moved Oakland
suspect taken into custody t first glance, she thought it was a Halloween prank. The puffy into the Democratic column in most other
as 21-year-old Patrick Cru- corpse slumped over the chair had no eyes, nose or mouth — just
sius of the Dallas area. See PATTERSON, Page 6A
Police said another 26 hair on a skull, and bones sticking out from under a red sweater
and plaid pants. “How sick,” Linda Kajma said to herself before
See SHOOTING, Page 17A
venturing through the rest of the house in search of her missing cousin.

FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

BUSINESS, 1B It was Thanksgiving weekend and 80-year-old

Civil War relics
Artifacts found at Detroit’s
GAR Building will be displayed
City threw
Sally Honeycheck, who for decades lived in a run-
down Detroit neighborhood on Joseph Campau
near the Polish Yacht Club, wasn’t answering her

itself into
phone. So Kajma went looking for her, only to dis-
in a public memorial room. cover that her eccentric cousin had been secretly
leading a hellish existence, surrounded by filth,
rats, feces and mountains of clutter. In the end, it

Inside today’s Free Press

❚ Opinion.................................21A
❚ Obituaries............................24A
❚ Market Update......................4B
❚ Travel.......................................6E
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swallowed her whole.
The horrifying figure that Kajma saw in the
chair was her cousin.
helping out
Honeycheck, an avid Avon makeup collector
who had her hair done weekly and dressed impec-
cably for church functions, had died alone in the
nonprofit
filth of her kitchen, sitting in a nylon blue lawn Newly released emails
chair under a picture of the Last Supper. She was
surrounded by garbage a foot deep — empty sar- Close to one month after this show fundraising effort
dine cans, stacks of greeting cards, take-out bags, picture of Sally Honeycheck was
burned-out appliances and dirt-stained walls. taken on Oct. 14, 2018, she would be Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford
She had been eaten by her dog and rats. found dead and partially eaten by Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK

Mostly sunny. Forecast, 2A
Doctors in India have removed
526 teeth from the mouth of a
7-year-old boy. 2A
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In the next room was Honeycheck’s deceased
Rotweiller, Jack, another victim of the house that
had no heat, rat-chewed mattresses, squid-like
fungi growing out of the walls and dirt-crusted
floorboards that sagged so much that Kajma fell
through the kitchen floor.
For nearly seven decades, this is where the
Honeycheck sisters lived quietly together, plant-
ing flowers and lilac bushes, collecting baseball
memorabilia and ordering clothes, makeup and
jewelry by the box-loads. The century-old house
with six stained glass windows in Detroit’s Pole-
town neighborhood was their sanctuary. Their
parents bought the two-story, 1,700-square foot
home in 1951, raised their children there and never
left — not during the 1967 riot or after, when the
neighborhood emptied out and most white folks
her dog and rats that were in her
Detroit home. ELAINE TWOREK
“I know it’s an illness. But
if you met them on the
street you’d never, ever
know. If you looked at the
outside of the house …
you’d never know that this
nightmare was in here.”
Detroit officials repeatedly mischarac-
terized the true nature of city fundraising
efforts on behalf of a nonprofit run by a
woman with close ties to Mayor Mike Dug-
gan, newly released documents reveal.
Ever since an initial Free Press investi-
gation revealed city fundraising and grant
support for the Make Your Date nonprofit
in April, administration officials have
downplayed fundraising by the city, saying
they were limited to only a few initial at-
tempts before withdrawing and allowing
others to take over the effort.
But documents originally requested by
the newspaper months ago under a Free-
dom of Information Act request show

WEAHII-40000x
moved to the suburbs. Linda Kajma staffers from the city development office
Sally Honeycheck’s cousin
were engaged in meetings and
See UNFATHOMABLE, Page 14A
See NONPROFIT, Page 9A

Cover story/Metro
Nonprofit
Continued from Page 1A
correspondence with potential donors as late
as November 2018 — several years into the op-
eration of the nonprofit.
The City of Detroit released 211 pages of de-
leted emails Friday. The emails were mysteri-
ously deleted during the Free Press’ investiga-
tion into the city’s support for the Make Your
Date program, during which city officials
claimed that the city’s fundraising efforts were
brief.
When the Free Press questioned city offi-
cials last month about the deleted emails, the
city’s top lawyer announced that they would be
recovered and released to the public. Who was
behind deleting the emails remains unknown.
The Michigan Attorney General’s office
opened an investigation into the deleted
emails in recent days, a spokeswoman con-
firmed on Friday. The office previously classi-
fied its look into the deleted emails as a “re-
view.” Destroying public records is a crime
punishable by up to two years in prison.
“It has moved to investigation status and a
criminal prosecutor has been assigned to the
case,” said spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-Mc-
Kinney.
The recovered emails contradict previous
claims from Duggan’s office that the city devot-
ed scant resources toward raising money for
the Make Your Date program, a prenatal pro-
gram run by Dr. Sonia Hassan, who Duggan
was seen visiting after hours last summer at a
suburban residence.
The emails show at least two city workers
were integral in the fundraising. Hassan per-
sonally thanked one of them in June 2018.
“I wanted to drop you a line and thank you so
much for all your efforts with us. You bring
great knowledge and energy to the table for
this process. It is greatly appreciated,” Hassan
wrote to Monique Phillips, a development offi-
cer for the city.
Phillips was central to the city’s fundraising
efforts, the emails show. At one point, she
coached Make Your Date leaders on how to ask
for money. Phillips suggested they emphasize
Duggan’s support for their program in a March
2018 email that sought funding from the Skill-
man Foundation.
Phillips declined comment.
Phillips identified potential donors for Make
Your Date, attended donor meetings, submit-
ted funding proposals and updated Make Your
Date staff members on their progress, the
emails show.
Phillips transferred her duties with Make
Your Date to another city development officer,
Claire Huttenlocher, in June 2018, the emails
show.
A Make Your Date spreadsheet was attached
to some of the emails. But the spreadsheet,
along with other email attachments, was not
included in the city’s public release of the
emails in a posting on the Detroit law depart-
ment’s website.
Beyond targeting specific donors, the emails
show Make Your Date hoped to raise $2 million
to serve up to 15,000 women and expand
throughout the city and into schools and
churches.
In a statement accompanying the recovered
emails, Lawrence Garcia, the city’s top govern-
ment attorney, said he believes all the deleted
emails have been recovered and any deleted
emails discovered in the future will be added to
the law department’s posting.
“The emails come from dates in late 2017
and 2018. They are electronic correspondence
belonging to two junior staff members of the
Detroit Office of Development and Grants
(ODG) concerning their work with Wayne State
University (WSU) to identify charitable contri-
butions for WSU’s Make Your Date program —
an effort that has helped thousands of preg-
Warren
Continued from Page 4A
recent ones. He has repeatedly denied it’s his
voice on the tapes, which he said are phony,
manipulated and manufactured by his political
foes.
The milestone of a fourth term for him
would be allowed after voters in 2016 narrowly
agreed to change the term limits for the office of
mayor from three, four-year terms to five, four-
year terms.
Eight others also are on the ballot for mayor,
including Councilwoman Kelly Colegio, a for-
mer assistant to Fouts. The top two vote-get-
ters in the primary will face off in the November
general election.
In addition to Colegio, those vying for mayor
are: Lawrence J. Behr, a retiree, according to his
Facebook page, who lost a race for Macomb
County commissioner in November; Kristina
Lodovisi, who was deployed to Afghanistan
during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2010,
according to her campaign website, and who
lost a run for the 9th District senate seat in
2018; Brett Felton, who was featured in a 2015
CBS News Overtime report as an Army veteran
Dr. Sonia Hassan, in red, sits with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan during the 2015 fundraising gala for Hassan’s Make Your Date program at MGM
Grand Detroit. MAKEYOURDATE.ORG
nant women and babies,” Garcia said in the
statement. “Reducing infant mortality has
been a long-standing priority for Detroit, and
Make Your Date’s mission aligns with the City’s
goal of helping expectant mothers.”
The Detroit Office of the Inspector General
also is investigating the circumstances sur-
rounding the deleted emails and Garcia said he
would not comment further until the investi-
gation is complete.
The emails show the city’s fundraising cam-
paign involved several more potential donors
to Make Your Date than Duggan’s office previ-
ously specified to the Free Press during its in-
vestigation into the city’s support for the pro-
gram.
Duggan’s office said in April that the city’s
fundraising effort for Make Your Date only in-
volved “preliminary inquiries” and concept pa-
pers to the Skillman Foundation and the Chil-
dren’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation, and
that zero dollars were actually raised. The may-
or’s office has repeatedly claimed that Make
Your Date is a Wayne State University program.
“City staff briefly collaborated with the
Wayne State philanthropy department to try to
raise funds for the Wayne State program, but
those efforts were unsuccessful and no funds
were raised,” Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s chief of
staff, wrote to the Free Press in an April 2 email.
“At no time did anyone from the city participate
in any fundraising effort for a Make Your Date
nonprofit -- all efforts were a direct collabora-
tion with the university staff for the university-
run program.”
But the emails released Friday show that the
city was involved in courting donations from
the Ford Foundation, Fiat Chrysler, Blue Cross
Blue Shield of Michigan, The Kresge Founda-
tion, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
the Sean Anderson Foundation, the Michigan
Health Endowment Fund, the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation, March of Dimes, The Carl’s Foun-
dation and an organization listed as the “Fisher
Foundation.” And those communications cite a
nonprofit organization, not a university pro-
gram, as do other fundraising materials that
“There’s such a dynamic change going on in
the county.”
Ed Sarpolus
Executive director of Target-Insyght, a strategic consulting,
public opinion and market research firm
who returned to Iraq to help defend Iraqi Chris-
tians under threat from ISIS; and Matt Kueh-
nel, a self-described Libertarian Communist.
Also running is Chris Pasternak, a former
council candidate who, in 2011, was one of the
residents who gathered documents to show an
apparent discrepancy with Fouts’ date of birth;
Douglas Michael Chastney, who describes
himself as pro-cannabis and a dedicated bota-
nist on his Facebook page; and K.C. Ohiggins,
who describes himself as self-employed on his
Facebook page.
There is a ninth mayoral candidate, a write-
in, whose name is familiar to voters: Council-
man Scott Stevens.
Stevens is one of the councilmen who can-
not seek re-election to a council seat after the
Michigan Supreme Court decision in June that
stated he and three other veteran councilmen
were term-limited. Their names were removed
from the ballot, leaving their four council seats
note 501(c)(3) status of Make Your Date.
The Carl’s Foundation gave Make Your Date
a $51,285 grant in October 2018.
The Free Press submitted a Freedom of In-
formation Act request for emails related to the
city’s work with Make Your Date in May. The
city required $881 for the emails and the Free
Press paid a deposit in June but has not yet re-
ceived the records.
A former city official told the Free Press in
July that two workers in the Detroit Office of
Development and Grants, who conducted
fundraising for Make Your Date, were instruct-
ed to delete their emails to conceal the extent of
the city’s support for the maternal health pro-
gram.
Kennedy Shannon, the former assistant di-
rector of the Development and Grants Office,
said in an interview that Phillips approached
her in April to talk about the deleted emails,
days after publication of the Free Press’ inves-
tigation into Make Your Date and Duggan’s ties
to Hassan.
Shannon worked alongside the employees
and described in written complaints to the De-
troit Inspector General and the Attorney Gen-
eral’s office how her co-workers were told to
delete their Make Your Date emails.
“I definitely think it’s a cover-up,” Shannon
told the Free Press in an interview. “And I think
it’s an attempt to hide the fact that more city
resources were spent ... than what the mayor
said they were.”
The deleted emails were later recovered
once administration officials reversed the or-
der, Shannon said.
Both the Attorney General’s Office and De-
troit’s Office of Inspector General previously
launched inquiries into Make Your Date after
the Free Pressrevealed that the city provided
the program with $358,000 in federal grants
and that Duggan ordered the fundraising cam-
paign, which included the city’s highest rank-
ing development officer, back in 2017.
Attorney General Dana Nessel instructed
her criminal division last month to look into
the allegations of deleted emails after the issue
Warren mayor Jim Fouts delivers the annual
State of the City address at Andiamo in
Warren on June 5. JUNFU HAN, DETROIT FREE PRESS
open for the taking.
Council race
There are contested primaries for two coun-
cil-at-large seats and one council seat each in
Districts 1, 2 and 3. There are no primaries for
council seats in Districts 4 and 5.
Those running for council-at-large are: Con-
nor Berdy, who brought the term-limit lawsuit;
Gary Boike; Patrick Green; Kelli Kalvinski, An-
FREEP.COM ❚ SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2019 ❚ 9A
was brought to her attention.
Nessel personally weighed in after her crim-
inal division chief initially deferred the deleted
email complaints to the Detroit Inspector Gen-
eral.
Shannon said it was an FOIA request earlier
this year, around February, that preceded the
order to delete emails.
Once details of Duggan’s relationship with
Hassan and the city’s support for Make Your
Date were published by the Free Press in April,
Shannon said Phillips became upset about
having followed orders months earlier to delete
her emails.
Garcia said last month Mayor Duggan and
Detroit Chief Financial Officer Dave Massaron
learned in May about the possibility some
emails related to Make Your Date had been de-
leted.
“CFO Massaron promptly took the lead in
the effort to recover the emails. To the best of
our knowledge, the deleted emails were suc-
cessfully retrieved,” Garcia said. “Approxi-
mately two months ago, the Office of Inspector
General was informed of the circumstances
and was provided the emails recovered.”
It took several attempts by the Free Press to
obtain emails during its initial April investiga-
tion because city officials said emails showing
that Duggan had ordered fundraising efforts
for Make Your Date had been “corrupted.”
Messages from city officials to Hassan were
not included in the city’s initial 395-page re-
sponse to a Freedom of Information Act re-
quest, which had been reviewed by the law de-
partment.
Instead, the initial FOIA response included a
single email between Wiley, Hassan and the
city’s chief development official, Ryan Frie-
drichs, with a message body that read, “Attach-
ment is corrupted.”
After the Free Press questioned the “cor-
rupted” notation on the attachment, the city
provided the emails about the fundraising
campaign and explained that “clean copies”
were eventually discovered during a “manual
search.”
gela Rogensues and Diane Young. The top four
will move on to November’s general election.
Candidates for Council District 1 are Khaja
Shahab Ahmed, Bill Clift, Frederick Horndt,
Melody Magee, incumbent Councilman Ron
Papandrea, and Pete Sutliff.
Council District 2’s candidates are: George
Chapp, Patti Hatfield, Jonathan Lafferty, Rich-
ard Paul Sulaka II, and Jeremy Wallace.
Candidates for Council District 3 are: Mark
Dennings, Jocelyn Howard, Mindy Moore, and
Susan Smiley. Kevin Wittbrodt also is a write-
in for District 3, according to the Macomb
County Election Department.
Clerk race
Six people are running for clerk, including
Sonja Buffa, who was appointed to the position
earlier this year; county Commissioner Andrey
Duzyj, and Warren City Councilman Keith Sa-
dowski.
The other three candidates vying for the job
are Donna Kaczor Caumartin; Joseph M. Hunt,
who was ousted county clerk Karen Spranger’s
campaign manager, and Alan Shepperd.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@free-
press.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challre-
porter.
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FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

City: Duggan records cost $222K

Investigation info doesn’t come cheap;
BLITZ, 1D OIG is flouting state law, experts say
Michigan rolls
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford
over Rutgers Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK
Wolverines’ 52-0 shutout a
reprieve after last week’s A nearly six-month investigation into whether Mayor Mike
lackluster performance. Duggan gave preferential treatment to a local maternal health
program is in its final stages and involves more than 400,000
pages of documents, the Free Press has learned.
The Free Press sought the Detroit Office of Inspector Gener-
al’s investigative records — emails, text messages, financial
reports and other documents it has collected as well as newly
created reports — through a public records request last month,
but the city’s law department said the newspaper would have to
foot a bill estimated at $222,667 to obtain them.
Even if the Free Press pays the six-figure invoice, the city
plans to fight releasing documents that the inspector general’s
office has collected. The investigation involves Duggan and
Make Your Date, the maternal health program run by Sonia
Hassan, a woman with close ties to the mayor. Duggan initiated Mayor Mike Duggan, left,
the nonprofit program; recommended Hassan to lead it, and or- recommended Sonia Hassan,
dered high-ranking city officials to help with fundraising. Make right, to lead the maternal
Your Date received more than $358,000 in federal grant money health program Make Your
through the city. Date.
See DUGGAN, Page 11A

UAW strike
BLITZ, 6D
Michigan State
a model for
wins a thriller
Spartans come away with a
mobilizing
victory against surprisingly
tough Indiana, 40-31. US workers
After years of corporate
rule, labor wants a say
Phoebe Wall Howard Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

Detroit is being watched.

Its fight between hourly factory workers
and a multibillion dollar global corporation
is providing a glimpse of what the future
HOUSE ENVY, 1H may hold for tech workers and tech exec-
In love with utives, say Silicon Valley experts.
“People are looking to Detroit as a model
ornamentation for how you can unionize and collectively
Jackie Kennedy coveted a mobilize against management,” said Mar-
piece of this home architect garet O’Mara, author of “The Code: Silicon
Kamper built for his family. U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, has pushed for the impeachment of President Donald Trump from Valley and the Remaking of America” and a
the beginning of her term. Because of that, she may face a challenger in the primary. CAROLYN KASTER/AP professor of history at the University of
Washington.
“There’s some commonalities,” she

Any challenger for

Inside today’s Free Press said. “Workers at General Motors are say-
ing, ‘Look, you guys are swimming in profit
❚ Michigan Business ...............1B and you should not be cutting our health
❚ Movie Guide...........................8F care. We need to be more like partners in
❚ Obituaries .....................20-23A this.’ So, too, are workers at these very

Tlaib faces a fight

❚ Puzzles ................................2-3J large tech companies saying, ‘Hey, you,
you’re swimming in profit. You have all
these contract workers you’re not treating
fairly or as full employees and giving them
Weather benefits. We don’t like what you’re doing
High 66° ❚ Low 62°
Thunderstorm. Forecast, 2A
Controversial stances may draw district.
Who will challenge her? It’s entirely unclear. But
and we’re going to push back.’ ”
In fact, a key sticking point in the union
opponents; beating her not easy whoever steps up to do so is facing the fight of their talks with GM is what to do about thou-
lives — on the campaign trail and on the facts. sands of “temporary” workers who earn a
Todd Spangler and Kathleen Gray In Tlaib, they’ll be facing an incumbent who not bit more than half the wage of workers
Volume 189 | No. 148 ©2019 $3.00 Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK only can raise scads of money and is known for tire- standing next to them. Full-time workers
Home delivery pricing inside less campaigning, but whose name recognition — are fighting for those UAW members who
Subscribe: 800-395-3300
Classified: 586-977-7500;
WASHINGTON – Ten months out from next thanks in large part to attacks on her by President have no clear path to permanent jobs.
800-926-8237 year’s congressional primaries in Michigan, it’s al- Donald Trump over her stances on Israel and an im-
most certain U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, will peachment effort she has led since January — has See STRIKE, Page 12A
face at least one Democratic challenger who will be gone from local to international.

WEAHII-40000x trying to make the argument to Wayne County vot-

ers that she’s too controversial and that she has
been more worried about Palestine than her own
In many cases, that has led to people in

See TLAIB, Page 7A

Inside
Where the UAW-GM strike stands. 12A

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Metro/Cover story
Vaping
Continued from Page 4A
to get in. It’s crazy.”
Four female high school students told
Hometown Life that bathroom vaping is some-
thing they see often. Yaquinto and another
male high schooler reported that, for guys, it’s
not as much of an issue. But all six said, if
someone really wants to get away with it, it’s
not all that hard to vape in school.
“It’s very easy to hide,” said Jerrick Hai, a
senior at Churchill. “For example, people can
like put it up their sleeve or, if it’s small enough,
people can just hold it in their hand.”
The teens said Juuls, which look like a long
USB drive, are especially easy to conceal.
Though they contain nicotine, vapes don’t ex-
actly smell like tobacco, either.
“It doesn’t smell like a cigarette,” Palushi
said. “It smells like something fruity. With a
cigarette, you would see the smoke and you
would smell it. You would know that someone
is smoking. But for a vape, it smells like straw-
berries or something. It can be so easily hid-
den, too.”
Many stood up for school staff, saying that
the problem, big or small, doesn’t stem from a
lack of teachers or administration trying to
stop vaping when they see it.
“I think administration is well aware of it,”
Yaquinto said. “I do not think that teachers,
specifically, are on the lookout for that. There’s
probably some that are looking for that stuff,
but some teachers wouldn’t see that. It could
just be where you sit in the classroom.”
Getting hooked
Caroline Hardy, a senior at Livonia Franklin
High, talked about what she called the one and
only time she took a puff from a vape. She said
it was a “peer pressure situation” in which she
wanted to fit in. Hardy said she’s since changed
her mind about that.
“I felt like I fit in but, at the same time, I
wasn’t happy with myself because I was like,
‘You don’t need to do that to fit in,’ ” she said.
“People around me didn’t really change their
Duggan
Continued from Page 1A
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) wants
to keep the records secret while the investiga-
tion is ongoing so they are not used to “mislead
the public.”
“Based on information provided by the OIG
… release of the requested information and/or
record at this time would: 1) paint a biased pic-
ture without any context; 2) unfairly prejudice
innocent employees and individuals who are
identified in the records; and 3) be taken out of
context to sensationalize certain aspects of the
records and mislead the public,” reads a Sept.
10 letter to the Free Press from the Detroit law
department in response to the newspaper’s
records request on Aug. 20.
The letter notes that 400,000 pages of rec-
ords have been gathered and concedes that the
state’s public records law may not justify with-
holding the records. “While specific exemp-
tions under Michigan FOIA may not apply to
the records compiled by the OIG, it is our un-
derstanding that the OIG will defend its posi-
tion if necessary,” a footnote in the letter reads.
The city’s letter responding to the Free Press
request sheds new light on the high-profile in-
vestigation and underscores the complicated
relationship between the city’s administration
and Inspector General Ellen Ha.
The OIG is supposed to be the city’s inde-
pendent watchdog, but staff there collaborated
with the city’s law department to object to re-
leasing the records to the Free Press. Ha previ-
ously worked in the city’s law department,
raising concerns about her objectivity.
Deputy Inspector General Kamau Marable
said Friday that the office’s objections are not
specific to the investigation involving Duggan
and Make Your Date.
“We are not opposing the (FOIA) request
perpetually,” Marable said. “Our concern is the
information being released while an investiga-
tion is ongoing and that’s every investigation
— high-profile or not. Every investigation we
feel that way and will take that stance.”
The investigation encompasses whether
the city and Duggan provided Make Your Date
with any preferential treatment. The probe ex-
panded in July after the Free Press revealed
that city workers deleted emails related to
Make Your Date and Hassan, while the news-
paper prepared its first report on the mayor’s
relationship with the program and Hassan.
The inspector general’s office said it would
investigate the circumstances surrounding the
deleted emails as part of its overall investiga-
tion into Make Your Date.
Duggan and Dave Massaron, the city’s chief
financial officer, learned about the deleted
emails in May.
During an unrelated meeting with Free
Press editors and reporters Thursday, Massa-
ron would not comment on whether the in-
Smoke shops carry a variety of e-cigarette products for those who vape. Oils used in the
devices come in a variety of flavors. Michigan recently banned the sale of flavored oils in an
effort to cut down vape use among teens. SUSAN VELA/HOMETOWN LIFE
perspective of me, I just thought I needed to.”
Yaquinto and Hai also said they’ve tried
vaping at the offering of others. Though they
said no, Franklin senior Madison Moore and
Stevenson sophomore Isabella Covert said
they’ve been offered at least once. For half the
teens, it’s natural to want to say yes.
“I think when you’re just in that atmos-
phere, it’s just sort of like, ‘Oh, this won’t hurt
me,’ ” Yaquinto said.
But, some reported seeing something that
started as fitting in become something that had
a real grip on their friends.
“People will say it’s not a big deal and that
it’s fine,” Moore said. “But, they get so used to
using it that’s it’s like consistent and it just
A nearly six-month investigation into whether Mayor Mike Duggan gave preferential
treatment to a local maternal health program is in its final stages. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
spector general has interviewed him or how he
found out about the deleted emails.
“We have been asked by the Office of the In-
spector General not to comment until she com-
pletes the investigation. So I can’t,” Massaron
said.
When asked whether he has ever known
any city officials to delete emails to avoid pub-
lic disclosure, Massaron also cited the inspec-
tor general’s instructions to remain quiet.
When pressed, he said, “I’m unaware of any-
body deleting emails to avoid discussion, dis-
closure.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
also has instructed her criminal division to
look into the deleted emails after the issue was
brought to her personal attention.
Although the OIG investigation is in its final
stages, it could be a while before a final report
is issued because any person or agency criti-
cized in the preliminary report has the right to a
closed-door appeal hearing, according to the
inspector general’s administrative rules. The
appeals process could take several weeks.
The inspector general’s office would not pro-
vide any details about the investigation, only
characterizing it as ongoing.
The office confirmed that it raised concerns
with the law department about the Free Press’
FOIA request.
“Unless required to do so, we do not discuss
or share any information we’ve collected dur-
ing our investigation with any persons outside
of our agency,” an email from the inspector
general’s office reads. “Preserving the integrity
of our investigation under the charter requires
our silence until a final report is issued by our
FREEP.COM ❚ SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019 ❚ 11A
sidetracks them from what they actually need
to be focusing on at school.”
Why not?
Non-vaping teens said staying away from
the trend makes sense because they don’t want
something controlling them.
“I run cross country and track and so I care
about my lungs and I don’t want anything hap-
pening to them so I just choose not to,” Hardy
said. “Also, I like saving my money and spend-
ing it on things like food or going shopping for
clothes. I don’t really want to have to go and try
figure out how I’m going to buy Juul pods.”
Yaquinto, who is also an athlete, agreed that
office.”
The city charter’s requirement that inspec-
tor general records be kept confidential is sub-
ject to state law, including the FOIA statute,
which supersedes local rules and laws.
The Free Press appealed the law depart-
ment’s FOIA response last week. The appeal
cited several areas where the city’s response
appeared to violate state statutes and it re-
quested specific legal justifications for docu-
ments that were denied.
The inspector general has the authority to
investigate any elected official, city employee,
agencies and any programs or contractors who
provide goods or services to Detroit.
According to the city charter, the inspector
general also has the ability to access financial
and other records of all city agencies at any
time.
During the course of an investigation, the
office can administer oaths, take testimonies,
subpoena witnesses and require the “produc-
tion of evidence relevant to a matter under in-
vestigation,” according to the city charter.
Any city employee, elected official or con-
tractor who fails to cooperate with an investi-
gation could be subject to “forfeiture of office,
discipline, debarment or any other applicable
penalty.”
If it is determined that an illegal act was
committed, the inspector general is required to
refer the matter to the appropriate law enforce-
ment agencies.
Viki Harrison, director of state operations
for the nonpartisan grassroots organization
Common Cause, said the city’s handling of the
FOIA response raises new transparency ques-
vaping wouldn’t help him on the field.
“I don’t smoke because it’s not necessary,”
he said. “I’m an athlete and it’s not good for
your health. Clearly, it’s not good for your
health and I think people keep on doing it be-
cause they haven’t seen a major outcome of
what these things can do to you.”
Others think it’s a distraction.
“I feel like it just distracts them from what
needs to be done, like their priorities ... I don’t
think smoking helps with anything that is go-
ing on in high school,” Covert said.
Perhaps not surprising, underage smokers
were not interested in talking about their hab-
its.
Staying healthy and alive
“As unfortunate as it is that someone passed
away from it, I think it’ll bring more attention to
how many people are doing it and get them to
realize this is not OK,” Hardy said.
Hardy thinks young people are stuck in a
place of not being educated about vaping and
not caring.
“I definitely do not think people are educat-
ed enough on it,” Moore added. “People have
just been so caught up in the idea that, ‘Well,
it’s not a cigarette.’ ”
The eight deaths caused from vaping have
come from puffing THC, the psychedelic chem-
ical in marijuana, bought from street dealers.
But popcorn lung, or bronchiolitis obliterans,
and wet lung, or pneumonitis, have both been
tied to vaping. Either way, the long-term effects
of frequent vaping aren’t known.
“Now, this is hitting our generation and no-
body knows what the long-term affect is. It’s
unpredictable,” Yaquinto said.
“The health risks involved in vaping are still
unknown,” Hai added. “So, I’m not willing to
take that risk.”
Moore went as far as to suggest that she’d
like to see it in health class curriculum so peo-
ple can get wise to potential health effects. The
Farmington Public Schools district had a doc-
tor speak with its high schoolers in mid-Sep-
tember with the aim of doing just that.
But as far as vaping with the hopes of fitting
in goes, Hardy kept it the simplest.
“You definitely don’t need to.”
tions and damages the public’s trust.
Harrison read the city’s FOIA response to
the Free Press and said it is inappropriate for
the law department to chastise the media by
suggesting it would attack innocent employ-
ees.
“Are they writing an op-ed or is this a FOIA
response?” Harrison said.
Harrison said the city’s response erodes
trust in government.
“I’m outraged just reading some of the lan-
guage that they’ve used in here,” she said.
“They’re being incredibly defensive instead of
just doing their jobs and answering the ques-
tion. The public is going to once again think
that their government is hiding something and
not playing fair and they’re stopping the press
from doing their jobs. The lack of transparency
and ability for the public to really understand
what’s happening is completely erased when
you get a response like this.”
The inspector general’s office said there
should be no transparency concerns.
“We have stated that we have no issues with
releasing information after the investigation is
concluded,” the office wrote in an email re-
sponding to questions from the Free Press. “As
stated previously this is to protect the integrity
of any investigation, high profile or otherwise.”
Harrison said she also believes the $222,667
price tag to fulfill the request prevents access
to documents that should legally be available
for public consumption.
“It is obviously outrageous to charge a
newspaper $225,000 for something that is go-
ing to be nothing but redactions,” Harrison
said. “Charging for staff time is a huge problem,
too. If your Information Act requires and allows
them to charge to compile information, that
should be changed. That is something that
makes it cost prohibitive for anyone to use this
law to get the information they’re entitled to.
How is anybody supposed to be able to afford
$200,000?”
Adam Marshall, an attorney with the Re-
porters Committee for Freedom of the Press,
called the city’s bill “shockingly high,” espe-
cially considering that Michigan’s public rec-
ords law allows cities to provide records free of
charge if they benefit the general public.
“Any time an inspector general is investigat-
ing any type of allegation of wrongdoing, that’s
just inherently in the public interest,” Marshall
said.
The city’s position that it would fight releas-
ing the records despite any legal justification is
“patently unlawful,” Marshall said.
“They seem to readily admit that no Michi-
gan FOIA exemption applies but they’re not go-
ing to release these records,” he said. “The let-
ter seems to be flouting that legal obligation on
the basis of some purported policy argument.
That’s not a legal reason that allows those rec-
ords to be withheld.
“I’m really at a loss to understand how the
city thinks this is appropriate or lawful.”
6A ❚ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Cover story
“The OIG concludes that the selection
of MYD lacked fairness, openness and
transparency.”
Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha, in a
report about the Make Your Date program
Report
Continued from Page 1
The inspector general launched its investi-
gation into Make Your Date in April following a
Free Press report about Duggan’s relationship
with Make Your Date and its director, Dr. Sonia
Hassan. Duggan worked with Wayne State
University officials to create the program,
handpicked Hassan to lead the initiative and
ordered city staff to raise money for Make Your
Date. The city also directed more than
$358,000 in federal grants to the program.
Ha’s report confirmed details in numerous
Free Press investigative reports and included
new information about additional city re-
sources provided to Make Your Date. General
fund money was earmarked for Lyft rides for
Make Your Date participants and the city’s
health department was expected to perform an
inordinate amount of work for the program.
Workers in the department felt pressured by
the mayor’s office to recruit women to Make
Your Date, the OIG found.
If there was ever a problem with the health
department, Make Your Date “would go direct-
ly to the mayor’s office and the mayor would
call the DHD Director who would, in turn, scold
the DHD staff regardless of fault,” one health
department worker told the inspector general.
Eli Savit, who serves as Duggan’s chief legal
counsel in the law department, disputed the
inspector general’s findings, indicating they
are not supported by facts or applicable legal
standards.
“The draft findings, moreover, threaten to
impose severe, unwarranted damage to the
reputation of several public servants — and
further threaten to stymie effective govern-
ance in the City of Detroit,” Savit wrote in his
32-page response.
Savit’s response was also on behalf of Wiley
and two others involved in deleting emails. Sa-
vit requested that the inspector general reverse
her findings, but Ha maintained her position
and said she hopes the mayor reconsiders.
While generally dismissive of the inspector
general’s report, the mayor will be consulting
with the city’s human resources director, De-
nise Starr, about the discipline suggested in the
report.
The inspector general interviewed Duggan
but did not investigate the nature of his rela-
tionship with Hassan. The city’s ordinance
prohibiting officials from making decisions for
financial gain only requires them to disclose
personal relationships such as those with a
spouse or domestic partner. The inspector gen-
eral determined Duggan’s relationship with
Hassan was irrelevant to the investigation.
Abuse of authority
In assessing her findings, Ha determined
that Wiley’s orders to delete city emails about
Make Your Date were “more egregious” than
the preferential treatment shown to Make Your
Date.
“The deletion of emails only serves to un-
dermine the public’s trust in an open and
transparent government,” Ha’s report reads.
“The very fact they were ordered to be deleted
alone casts a shadow over transparency.”
Wiley’s actions were an abuse of authority
and she should be disciplined, the inspector
general concluded.
“When a public official, especially some-
body from very high up, when that person or-
ders his or her subordinates to delete certain
emails, we believe that’s contrary to open gov-
ernment,” Ha said in an interview with the Free
Press.
“She (Wiley) did have an intention to make
those emails disappear, which we find egre-
gious because the whole point of open govern-
ment is so that people see what went on. And to
have those records disappear is just not only a
violation of spirit of openness but quite frankly
it really puts a shadow over the government
that’s supposed to be transparent.”
The report paints a troubling portrait of Wi-
ley, the former Fox 2 reporter who became Dug-
gan’s chief of staff shortly after he took office in
2014.
Known as a fierce Duggan loyalist, Wiley
acted swiftly to conceal information about the
city’s ties to Make Your Date just as Duggan’s
relationship with Hassan was coming into
public view late last year.
City employees who carried out Wiley’s or-
ders — Chief Development Officer Ryan Frie-
drichs and his deputy, Sirene Abou-Chakra —
also abused their authority and should be dis-
ciplined, the inspector general wrote.
It is illegal in Michigan to destroy public rec-
ords, but the inspector general’s report did not
determine whether Wiley or any other staffers
involved in deleting the emails broke any laws.
That could be determined by Michigan Attor-
ney General Dana Nessel’s public integrity
unit, which also is investigating the matter.
Savit, the mayor’s attorney, defended Wi-
ley’s actions as an “error in judgment” that
doesn’t rise to the severity of an abuse of au-
thority. The order was only given “to protect ju-
nior staffers from unsavory media attention”
and it would be unfair to suggest it was a cover-
up, Savit wrote in his response to the report.
Preferential treatment
Duggan told the inspector general in an
Aug. 20 interview that his support of Make
Your Date wasn’t atypical and that he has had
the same level of involvement with other city
initiatives.
But unlike other initiatives, Make Your Date
was created at Duggan’s direction, the inspec-
tor general noted, “whereas most, if not all, of
the city’s other partners were already estab-
lished with a proven track record.”
“The OIG investigation revealed that MYD
received an inordinate amount of city time and
resources, considering the fundraising goals
and scope of work when compared against
other projects of similar size and scope,” Ha’s
report noted.
Questions about Hassan’s relationship with
Duggan were first raised after she was spotted
last year arriving after hours at the same sub-
urban residence as Duggan in an edited sur-
veillance video captured by a private investiga-
tor hired by Detroit businessman Robert Car-
mack.
The inspector general’s report summarizes
the very beginnings of the Make Your Date pro-
gram.
Duggan’s professional relationship with
Hassan goes back at least to the beginning of
his administration, when Make Your Date was
born out of the mayor’s 2013 transition team
shortly after he was elected.
He asked Hassan to co-chair his health care
transition committee and she presented a plan
to address the city’s infant mortality, which led
to the creation of her program.
Months later, Make Your Date became the
city’s official partner to fight preterm birth and
infant mortality on Feb. 27, 2014, when the
mayor announced the program during his first
State of the City address.
Duggan was a key speaker at Make Your
Date’s initial news conference, touting the or-
ganization’s role in his ambitious mission to
fight preterm birth.
The program began enrolling pregnant
women on May 15, 2014.
In 2015, the City of Detroit began sending to
Make Your Date a portion of its state allocation
of money for maternal and child health pro-
grams. The state, Wayne State and the city’s
grant administrator — the Southeastern Michi-
gan Health Association — all approved the
city’s grant contributions to Make Your Date.
Make Your Date used the city grants for
many purposes — nurses’ labor costs, office
supplies, computer equipment and advertising
were among the expenses, records show.
Ha said there is also no evidence Make Your
Date misused funds or that it is not the best
partner to combat infant mortality.
The city’s third and final grant to Make Your
Date, for $100,000, was finalized in May 2017
and expired on Sept. 30, 2017.
The inspector general found it problematic
that no other previously established nonprofits
and programs were considered by the mayor to
lead the fight against infant mortality.
Duggan told the OIG that his experience as
CEO of the Detroit Medical Center helped him
become familiar with preterm birth rates as
well as the National Institutes of Health Per-
inatology Research Branch, where Hassan
served as the project site manager.
So he unilaterally selected Make Your Date
to partner with the city.
But because city time, resources and fund-
ing were used for Hassan’s program, “other
nonprofits should have been considered to ef-
fectuate the mayor’s initiative,” Ha wrote, add-
ing that a formal and competitive process
should have taken place.
“While the mayor was able to articulate his
position in selecting MYD, because it appears
no other agencies were considered to ensure
that the best possible selection was made in
his initiative to combat infant mortality, in the
eyes of the public, MYD had unfair advantage
over other organizations,” the OIG determined.
Although the city lacks a defined procedure
or policy that directly addresses the selection
of nonprofit partners for mayoral priorities or
other city initiatives, it does have established
procedures for when City of Detroit general
funds and grant funds are being used to pay for
services under the Office of Contracting and
Procurement.
The inspector general states that those pol-
icies and procedures should be made applica-
ble to Make Your Date and other organizations
or nonprofits that receive grants from the city.
“The City of Detroit must competitively bid
all new contracts to the greatest extent possi-
ble,” the report stated.
But despite the findings the OIG said it rec-
ognizes and applauds Duggan and the city’s ef-
forts to reduce infant mortality, as well as the
“significant contributions made by MYD.”
“It is entirely appropriate that city time and
resources be allocated to this goal,” Ha wrote.
“However, there must be a process by which
any agency, nonprofit, or other organization is
selected to receive these resources.
Make Your Date was launched with help
from major health organizations in the area, in-
cluding St. John Providence Health System,
Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit
Medical Center, which Duggan ran as CEO until
he resigned in 2012 to run for mayor.
Some of those health groups also gave Make
Your Date significant financial help early on.
Many contributions were made through its
celebration galas, where Duggan served as
honorary chairman for three straight years,
from 2015 to 2017.
Photos from one gala posted on its website
show Hassan and Duggan sitting at a table to-
gether and posing for a photo with comedian
Louie Anderson, the headlining entertainment
act.
All references to the Make Your Date galas
and events, including photos of Duggan, have
since been removed from its website.
Problems arise
Duggan announced a partnership between
Make Your Date and SisterFriends in August
2017, with the goal of the two programs being
separate but complementary. SisterFriends is
a city program to reduce infant mortality by
connecting pregnant women with a social sup-
port network.
The partnership was expected to be seam-
less but problems quickly arose, according to
interviews with former and current employees
and emails obtained during the course of the
inspector general investigation.
Yolanda Hill-Ashford, a former Sister-
Friends manager, said Make Your Date was un-
usual because of Duggan’s level of involve-
ment. She said the partnership felt forced be-
cause it was “what the mayor wanted.”
Hill-Ashford said she believed Make Your
Date “absolutely, absolutely, absolutely” re-
ceived preferential treatment in terms of may-
oral support and “it was highlighted, it was the
preferred program.”
But problems began even prior to the part-
nership, according to the report, when the
health department attempted to award Make
Your Date its first round of funding in 2015 and
continued through subsequent rounds of
funding.
Contract negotiations took several months
and an excess amount of time and effort from
several health department employees who had
trouble getting information about the pro-
gram’s outcomes, according to an email written
in May 2015 by Chelsea Harmell, former SEM-
HA/Detroit Health Department Maternal Child
Health Program Manager.
“Negotiations have stalled over several bud-
get line items (initially nearly half of the budget
was dedicated to advertising), changing pro-
gram staff, Dr. Hassan’s lack of availability to
meet over the phone or in person for months on
end and continued confusion … about whether
the MYD program activities are serving the
population at large or acting as clinical re-
search,” Harmell wrote.
Health department staffers had difficulties
obtaining Make Your Date’s budget and justifi-
cation for its disbursement of funds.
Meeting minutes from a March 2017 Sister-
Friend’s strategic planning meeting revealed
that the health department had a “tumultuous
relationship” with Make Your Date.
Hill-Ashford said in an Aug. 7 interview with
the inspector general that getting information
from Make Your Date leadership and staff was
like “pulling teeth.”
“They don’t do things really in the spirit of
partnership,” Hill-Ashford said.
Hill-Ashford initially expressed her frustra-
tions soon after Duggan directed the partner-
ship and she told the inspector general’s office
that after the third or fourth meeting with the
mayor’s office, “it started to feel more like a
takeover” instead of just a partnership.
She said that instead of a collaboration, Sis-
terFriends was tasked with recruiting women
for Make Your Date and it became the focus of
their meetings.
The inspector general said Hill-Ashford’s
assertion was supported by an email sent by
Hassan in September 2017. Hassan wanted to
temporarily hold off on sending Make Your
Date patients to SisterFriends and instead fo-
cus on SisterFriends recruiting patients jointly
to both organizations.
“This statement is troubling because the
stated goal of both programs is to reduce infant
mortality,” the inspector general wrote. “The
focus should be on making sure expectant
mothers are receiving all assistance available
to them as opposed to bolstering MYD’s enroll-
ment numbers.”
David Yeh, the Detroit health department’s
director of special projects, also noted tensions
between SisterFriends and Make Your Date.
Yeh questioned why the program was so close-
ly integrated with the city and that he believed
it received preferential treatment.
“(MYD) became, in my view, more active
and wanting to be closely involved after DHD
got the $2 million grant from the Ralph Wilson
Foundation in early 2017,” Yeh said. Make Your
Date “thought that they should be getting the
funds rather than DHD because they were the
high-profile, evidence based, going-to-
change-infant-mortality-for-the-city pro-
gram.”
The inspector general found that the city
also allocated general fund dollars to help pay
for Lyft rides for both Make Your Date and Sis-
terFriends participants in early 2017. The allo-
cation came after the mayor made transporta-
tion funding a priority for pregnant women en-
rolled in either program. The funds, totaling
more than $127,000 between August 2017 and
April 2019, were paid directly through the
health department.
‘Let the circus settle’
Wiley’s initial order to delete emails came in
December, not long after surveillance footage
of Duggan and Hassan was shown outside city
hall during rush hour on a giant video monitor
affixed to a truck.
The public spectacle, commissioned by Car-
mack, triggered widespread speculation about
the mayor’s relationship with Hassan and
prompted the Free Press to launch an investi-
gation into the city’s support of Hassan’s pro-
gram, Make Your Date.
In late November, the Free Press sent a pub-
lic records request to the city for contracts and
other documents regarding Make Your Date
and Hassan.
Wiley gave her first directive to delete city
emails concerning Make Your Date sometime
in December, according to the inspector gener-
al’s report.
Friedrichs, who oversees the city’s Office of
Grants and Development, said in an interview
with the inspector general’s office that Wiley
called and told him to have two of his staffers
delete their emails pertaining the city’s out-
reach for Make Your Date. Wiley also wanted
the staffers to stop contacting Make Your Date.
“Ms. Wiley justified her direction to Mr.
Friedrichs by stating that she did not want to
‘pull the grants department into all of this,’” ac-
cording to the report.
Wiley’s order went down the chain of com-
mand. Friedrichs told Abou-Chakra to pass
along the message to the two staffers involved
in raising money for Make Your Date, Monique
Phillips and Claire Huttenlocher.
Phillips got the message and deleted her
emails. But first she made sure to forward some
of them to her personal email to maintain a rec-
ord, Phillips told the inspector general’s office.
The message, however, didn’t reach Hutten-
locher and she continued interacting with
Make Your Date about fundraising.
Wiley eventually found out her order wasn’t
completely followed when a Make Your Date
representative told her about Huttenlocher’s
ongoing emails. Wiley again called Friedrichs.
“Staff were given a second directive to stop
contacting MYD and to delete all MYD related
emails,” according to the report. Friedrichs
“also noted that, at that time, a ‘full stop’ oc-
curred to ‘let the circus settle.’”
Wiley never admitted to giving the orders
during her interview with the inspector gener-
al’s office in August. She claimed she didn’t re-
call giving the instructions. But the inspector
general’s office was not convinced. Statements
from Friedrichs, Abou-Chakra, Phillips and
Huttenlocher “are consistent in that the order
to delete the emails came from Ms. Wiley,” ac-
cording to the report.
The inspector general found no evidence
that Duggan was involved in or knew about the
orders to delete emails.
City officials took steps to recover the de-
leted emails in May after an employee being
dismissed from her job spoke out. The city’s
Chief Financial Officer, Dave Massaron, was in-
volved in recovering the emails and provided
59 messages to the inspector general’s office,
which later recovered another 26 additional
emails. Because of the city’s retention period
for deleted emails, “it is impossible to defini-
tively say that all deleted MYD emails have
been recovered,” the report concluded.
The report also criticized the use of personal
email accounts by Duggan and Wiley. Mes-
sages from their personal accounts were hand-
ed over to the inspector general in response to a
document request.
“Mayor Duggan told the OIG that he per-
forms city business on his personal email. …
Ms. Wiley told the OIG that she uses her per-
sonal emails account to conduct city business
and is under the impression that is not an is-
sue,” the report reads.
The inspector general called the practice
“extremely problematic.” If emails from a per-
sonal account are requested under public rec-
ords laws, for example, Duggan or Wiley would
be responsible for producing the messages,
rather than the city’s IT department.
The inspector general recommended that
the city establish a policy preventing public
servants from conducting city business on per-
sonal email accounts.
Joe Guillen has been covering city govern-
ance and development issues for the newspa-
per since 2013. He has covered Detroit city hall,
been a member of the investigations team and
previously worked at The (Cleveland) Plain
Dealer covering county and state government.
Contact him at 313-222-6678 or jguillen
@freepress.com.
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na-
tive, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Journal-
ists. She was recently named an Ida B. Wells
Fellow, a national investigative reporting fel-
lowship. Contact her at kstafford
@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
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EDUCATION DESERTS FREE PRESS INVESTIGATION

Transportation an Report
knocks
SPORTS, 1B
Birkett: Don’t
give up on Lions
obstacle to college Duggan,
If team can fix its defense,
there is plenty of time to get
back in the playoff hunt.
city staff
Preferential treatment for
maternity program cited
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford
Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan provided pref-

erential treatment to a prenatal health pro-
gram run by a woman with close ties to him,
and his chief of staff later ordered emails re-
METRO, 4A lated to the program deleted, an explosive De-
troit Inspector General report released Mon-
Trump to make day found.
lakes a priority Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s chief
of staff, abused her authority
EPA boss says president will by twice ordering city staff to
now embrace Great Lakes delete their emails related to
restoration projects. the program, known as Make
Your Date, as the mayor’s ties
came under scrutiny by the Wiley
Darrion Hayter, a Baldwin secondary school senior, left, gets help filling out his application for Free Press and others late last
Ferris State with Duane Roberts, the Baldwin Promise zone coordinator for the Baldwin Promise year. The revelation that Wiley was behind
and college access center. The Baldwin Promise helps students pursue college. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP more than 200 pages of mysteriously deleted
emails was one of multiple instances of mis-
conduct cited in the report.
In rural Michigan, it’s not easy ise Coordinator jumped in his car with a recent
Baldwin graduate and headed north. Five hours
After reviewing more than 400,000 pages
of documents and interviewing several city
to get to or stay at universities later, he pulled into Northern Michigan Univer- officials, Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha
sity, delivering the student for orientation. concluded Make Your Date received preferen-
David Jesse Detroit Free Press Why was Roberts driving the student? The tial treatment from Duggan because he
BUSINESS, 9A USA TODAY NETWORK student’s mom couldn’t afford to take time off picked the program to lead the city’s fight
Non-travelers from her hourly job or afford the $85 per day par- against infant mortality without a competi-
Third of three parts ent fee. It’s a reminder of the poverty in Lake tive selection process.
can go to gate BALDWIN – It’s Duane Roberts’ job to get County, the poorest county in Michigan, and the “Based on the evidence gathered, the OIG
New Metro Airport program Baldwin High School students to college — obstacles faced by students in getting to college. concludes that the selection of MYD lacked
will allow people without sometimes literally. Besides Roberts, Baldwin has another weapon fairness, openness and transparency,” Ha
tickets to pass security. That’s why on a summer Sunday night after wrote.
church, the pastor and full-time Baldwin Prom- See COLLEGE TRANSPORT, Page 7A
See REPORT, Page 6A

Inside today’s Free Press

❚ Obituaries......................12-13A
❚ Classified .............................14A
❚ Comics ....................................2C
❚ Puzzles................................4-5C Old Kmart site in Troy a
Weather
prime spot but still vacant
High 58° ❚ Low 42°
Mostly cloudy. Forecast, 2A John Gallagher What can explain it? The site is big — some
Columnist 40 acres — so it will take a substantial project
Detroit Free Press to swallow it all. And any new development is
USA TODAY NETWORK likely to first require the demolition of the
Volume 189 | No. 171 ©2019 $2.50 sprawling old Kmart headquarters at consid-
Home delivery pricing inside
erable expense.
Subscribe: 800-395-3300
Classified: 586-977-7500; 800-
The real estate world moves in mysterious And the owner of the site, developer Nate
926-8237 ways. Case in point: The former Kmart head- Forbes, wants to take care that whatever hap-
quarters on Big Beaver Road in Troy, a mod- pens there doesn’t detract from the Somerset

WEAHII-11000v
ernist landmark and symbol of Oakland Coun-
ty’s growth in the 1970s, remains vacant some
13 years after Kmart moved out. That’s despite
a great location and a rising real estate market.
Collection mall across the street, which he co-
owns. The former Kmart headquarters property in Troy has
remained vacant for 13 years despite a great location and a
See GALLAGHER, Page 5A rising real estate market. RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

MOM FIGHTS FOR LONGER TIME TO EAT

Duggan:
School lunch: Kids No penalty
NATION+WORLD, 8A forced to gulp, pitch for deleted
Ukraine envoy
testifies
Top diplomat to country
city emails
called it ‘crazy’ that the U.S. Despite slam in OIG report,
conditioned aid release.
his staff won’t be punished
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen
Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK

Mayor Mike Duggan’s chief of staff, Alexis

Wiley, and two other city workers involved in
deleting emails about a controversial pro-
gram supported by the mayor will not be pun-
ished, Duggan announced Tuesday.
Although a blistering Detroit inspector
general’s report found that Wiley abused her
SPORTS, 1B authority by twice ordering city staff to delete
dozens of emails, Duggan excused Wiley’s
Spartans lose decisions and said she would undergo public
Langford, again records training.
“They made a mistake in judgment, there’s
Recurring ankle injury will no question that is what they did,” Duggan
sideline the senior guard said. “I believe this is the appropriate action
until at least January. to be taken.”
Two officials who carried out Wiley’s or-
ders to delete emails, chief development offi-
Gabriel Peters, 5, of Commerce Township looks through the refrigerator for snacks after returning cer Ryan Friedrichs and his deputy, Sirene
home from Keith Elementary School. Angela Peters says her children often come home wanting Abou-Chakra, also will receive training on
snacks because of the lack of time they have for lunch and recess. RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS document management, the Freedom of In-
formation Act and laws about preserving rec-
ords.
Experts say extending period See DUGGAN, Page 6A
important for better nutrition “They need to have enough time to not only eat
... but to be able to try those fruits and
John Wisely Detroit Free Press vegetables.”
LIFE+FOOD, 1C USA TODAY NETWORK Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman for the School
A recipe with a Nutrition Network, a group of school food professionals
When Angela Peters’ two young sons return
delicious twist from school, they bound into her Commerce ter they walk to the lunch room, wash their hands
Making fresh, homemade Township home to check the kitchen counter for and stand in the food line, there’s barely enough
Bavarian pretzels at home is fruit, plus the pantry and a garage fridge for time left in the 20-minute lunch period to eat their
surprisingly easy. snacks. food. Much of it ends up in the trash.
The boys are hungry, or as Peters puts it, han- Peters, 32, wants to get them more time — and
gry — a combination of hungry and angry. she discovered she’s not alone. Two weeks ago,
“I would probably be able to eat all of my lunch she posted an online petition asking for a longer
Inside today’s Free Press if there was more time,” said Dante, 7, a second- lunch period, and the petition garnered more than
❚ Obituaries ............................14A grader at Keith Elementary School. 2,600 signatures. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan speaks Tuesday
❚ Classified..............................10B Dante and his younger brother, Gabriel, a kin- about the controversy over the Make Your
❚ Comics ....................................2C dergartner, qualify for free lunch at school. But af- See SCHOOL LUNCH, Page 6A Date program run by a woman with close
❚ Puzzles................................4-5C ties to him. MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS

Weather
High 59° ❚ Low 47°
Windy. Forecast, 2A Ex-lawmakers cash in on Michigan pot industry
Volume 189 | No. 172 ©2019 $2.50
Some Kathleen Gray Detroit Free Press House of Representatives and Senate have an- ers can’t work, consult or lobby in the marijua-
USA TODAY NETWORK swered the call to make some money on the in- na industry after they leave office. But, in an
Home delivery pricing inside had even dustry. And it’s a lucrative business that has effort to ensure they aren’t immediately cash-
Subscribe: 800-395-3300
Classified: 586-977-7500; 800-
opposed Even as lawyers, accountants and public re- already seen sales of medical marijuana sky- ing in on the influence they had as legislators,
926-8237 making lations professionals have flocked to the mari- rocket to $229.3 million in the past year. most states have instituted “cooling-off ” peri-
juana industry to cash in on the budding busi- Those numbers are expected to jump to ods that range from six months to six years so
the drug

WEAHII-11000v
ness, there is another group also making a near $1 billion annually once sales of marijua- lawmakers have to wait before becoming a lob-
legal buck off it. na for adult recreational use begin later this byist.
Former lawmakers. year or by early 2020.
Nearly a dozen former members of the state There’s nothing that says former lawmak- See MARIJUANA, Page 7A

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Cover stories
School lunch
Continued from Page 1A
She ended up networking with parents and
others across the country who want the same
thing. Turns out, there’s a national discussion
about seat time, the actual amount of time a
child gets to sit down and eat after receiving
the food.
“This issue is even more important since
updated nutrition standards began taking ef-
fect in 2012,” the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention said in a research paper on the
topic. “Today, students receive significantly
larger portions of fruits and vegetables with
each meal and more of these produce choices
are fresh, which take longer for students to
consume.”
Healthier eating
School nutrition experts say seat time is im-
portant to healthier eating.
“Kids are kids, and typically they go for their
favorite item first, usually the center-of-the-
plate item,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a
spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Net-
work, a nationwide group of school food pro-
fessionals. “They need to have enough time to
not only eat that but to be able to try those
fruits and vegetables.”
Pratt-Heavener said revised nutrition stan-
dards required schools to offer a wider variety
of produce, including dark leafy greens and
red/orange vegetables once a week.
“Schools really have tried to introduce stu-
dents to items that they might not have en-
countered at home,” she said. “But you’ve got to
encourage kids to give those new foods to try,
and they’re certainly not going to eat those
items right away if they’re rushed through the
lunch period.”
Research shows that many of the school
meals under the new standards are healthier
than the typical packed lunch, Pratt-Heavner
said.
The CDC recommends at least 20 minutes of
seat time to allow kids the chance to finish
their meal, though it notes that less than half
the school districts in the nation don’t require
that.
Widespread issue
When Peters launched her effort, she quick-
ly learned that other parents near and far had
been involved in the same struggle.
Kristina Blasko has two children enrolled in
the neighboring Clarkston School District and
she joined Peters’ effort for the same reason;
her kids’ lunches go to waste and they come
home hungry.
“I’m trying to help her get this going,” Blasko
said. “The hope is that once we get one school
district to make a change then hopefully the
other neighboring schools such as Clarkston
would also follow suit. I’m so surprised by how
far widespread this issue actually is.”
Blasko said the issue really hit home for her
when she was visiting her child’s school one
winter to volunteer in the classroom. When
lunchtime came, the kids all started putting on
their winter coats and outdoor gear, which they
wore through the lunch period.
“They wear their snow gear in order to save
time,” she said. “So not only is it not enough
Duggan
Continued from Page 1A
The deleted emails — which were later re-
covered and revealed information about the
city’s fundraising activities for the Make Your
Date maternity program — remain the subject
of a criminal investigation by Michigan Attor-
ney General Dana Nessel’s Office. Several of
the recovered emails directly contradicted pre-
vious administration statements about city in-
volvement in fundraising efforts on behalf of
Make Your Date.
Duggan addressed the deleted emails and
other aspects of the inspector general’s report
during a news conference at City Hall Tuesday
morning.
He repeated earlier written administration
statements that the emails were deleted to pro-
tect less experienced staffers. Wiley’s deci-
sion-making, he said, was influenced by what
he described as a threatening, paranoid envi-
ronment created by local businessman Bob
Carmack, who had hired a private investigator
to follow the mayor.
Senior administration officials feared what
would happen to staff members if the emails
were released, Duggan said. The messages in-
volved two development officers who carried
out a Make Your Date fundraising campaign
that Duggan ordered in 2017.
Duggan recalled for reporters a discussion
with senior staff after he found out about the
deleted emails in May: “We had two junior staff
people who had done nothing except their jobs.
And it’s a matter of concern to us that Carmack
and his surrogates continue to file Freedom of
Information Act requests,” he said at the news
Angela Peters, 32, of Commerce Township talks with her sons Dante Hilton, 7, and Gabriel Peters, 5, after they arrive home in Commerce
Township from Keith Elementary School on Monday. Two weeks ago, Peters posted an online petition asking for a longer lunch period at their
school so they could have longer to eat, and the petition garnered more than 2,600 signatures. PHOTOS BY RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Peters talks with her son Gabriel as he has a
snack. The boys are always hungry when they
get home from school, she says.
time to sit and eat, but in the wintertime,
they’re wearing some snow pants and whatnot
in order to gain even more time. How uncom-
fortable is that to be sitting in snow gear eating
your lunch?”
Amy Ulrich is a mother in Bellevue, Wash-
ington, a Seattle suburb, who saw Peters’ pet-
ition online and contacted her to help.
Ulrich faced the same issue a few years ago
with her own kids and banded together with
other parents to try to extend the lunch period.
“They created a working group at the dis-
trict level to do to try different things, try differ-
ent technology in the checkout lines,” she said.
“We ended up doing a staggered schedule for
lunch where instead of bringing in two grades
conference.
“At some point, these two ju-
nior staff people are going to end
up on (Carmack’s) radar screen.
They’re going to become part of
the media circus, they’re not in
Wiley the cabinet, they haven’t been
warned. They aren’t ready for
this. And so we thought, in order to protect
them that if they deleted the emails, their
names would never surface and they’d be left
out. Obviously, that isn’t the way it has turned
out.”
The inspector general’s revelation that Wi-
ley was behind more than 200 pages of myste-
riously deleted emails was one of several in-
stances of misconduct cited in the report sur-
rounding the city’s relationship with Make
Your Date. City Inspector General Ellen Ha de-
scribed the email directive as the most egre-
gious element of the issues her office reviewed
during its months-long investigation.
“When a public official, especially some-
body from very high up, when that person or-
ders his or her subordinates to delete certain
emails, we believe that’s contrary to open gov-
ernment,” Ha said in an interview with the Free
Press on Monday.
Wiley’s first order to delete the emails was in
December, after the city began receiving Free-
dom of Information Act requests about Make
Your Date. Though the city had not yet received
a FOIA request for the emails that Wiley had
deleted, “any reasonable person could assume
the request was coming,” Ha’s report reads.
“She (Wiley) did have an intention to make
those emails disappear, which we find egre-
gious because the whole point of open govern-
ment is so that people see what went on. And to
have those records disappear is just not only a
worth of kids at a time, they only brought in
one.”
Those measures helped, but parents still
wanted more time and the district was reluc-
tant, Ulrich said.
“What led to the change in our district was
that parents hired a lawyer and threatened a
lawsuit,” Ulrich said.
In 2017, the district extended the lunch peri-
od from 20 to 25 minutes, Ulrich said. But that
affected only the Bellevue schools. Some
neighboring districts were working with a 15-
minute lunch period, she said.
Ulrich used the Parent Teacher Association
to help lobby for a new law in Washington on
the topic. She didn’t get one that extends the
lunch period, but the state eventually passed
one that allows for six districts to run pilot pro-
grams to experiment with different approach-
es, collect data on how they work and use that
data to help create a new law at some future
point.
Amanda Venezia is the director of dining for
the school district in Londonderry, New Hamp-
shire, about an hour north of Boston. She got
connected with Peters through a colleague and
has offered her support as well.
She said she and her peers in school lunch
circles talk about the issue all the time.
“It’s definitely a topic of conversation,” she
said. “Not only the time for the lunch, but as
standardized testing is so prevalent, curricu-
lum time is always a concern. They’re always
looking to increase curriculum time and unfor-
tunately, sometimes that time is found with
the cafeteria within the cafeteria time.”
violation of spirit of openness but quite frankly
it really puts a shadow over the government
that’s supposed to be transparent.”
It is illegal in Michigan to destroy public rec-
ords, but the inspector general’s report did not
determine whether Wiley or any other staffers
involved in deleting the emails broke any laws.
That could be determined through the investi-
gation by Nessel’s public integrity unit.
The OIG recommended discipline for Wiley,
Friedrichs and Abou-Chakra for their roles in
having the emails deleted. Ha also recom-
mended that Wiley be disciplined for providing
misleading statements about Make Your Date’s
funding.
Ha’s office stood by its findings on Tuesday
after Duggan’s news conference.
“All of the items covered in the press confer-
ence were considered before we finalized the
report, so we’re going to let our report speak for
itself,” said Deputy Inspector General Kamau
Marable
The inspector general’s report rekindled un-
answered questions about Duggan’s relation-
ship with Hassan. But the mayor again refused
to discuss it on Tuesday.
“I’m never going to discuss my personal life
and you guys know that,” Duggan said Tuesday
when asked whether he had an extramarital af-
fair with Hassan. “The OIG concluded it wasn’t
relevant.”
Duggan was seen meeting with Hassan after
hours at a suburban location in surveillance
video captured by Carmack’s private eye and
broadcast outside City Hall last November.
Carmack said he broadcast the video so the
public could see how the mayor behaves.
Fearing what Carmack might do next, Dug-
gan said he apologized to his cabinet for the
bad spot they were in.
School schedules
Peters found out that what others have al-
ready learned, that changing a school schedule
isn’t easy.
“The time allotted for elementary school
children to eat their lunch involves the entire
school day schedule,” the Walled Lake Consoli-
dated School District said in a statement, not-
ing that the state requires 1,098 hours of in-
struction each year.
Other factors to be considered include
teacher union contracts, bus schedules and
time needed for special classes like physical
education, art and music.
Still, Peters’ efforts have begun to pay off.
The school superintendent, Kenneth Gut-
man, at whom her petition is directed, called
her this week and said he agreed with many of
her concerns. She said he acknowledged the
obstacles but agreed to work with her to make a
change.
In Peters’ kitchen after school this week,
Dante gnawed on an apple before he and his
brother decided they’d each like a banana. Pe-
ters relented and let them eat, even though she
planned to start dinner in an hour.
She said she’s committed to making a
change and will continue to press for more seat
time.
“I don’t like to be told no,” she said. “I’m a
pretty stubborn person and for our children’s
sake ... I think with all the support of the par-
ents and everything we will keep pushing.”
Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwise-
ly@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely.
“You all need to be conscious of the fact, you
don’t know if you’re being followed tonight,”
Duggan said he told his staff. “You don’t know if
you’re being recorded, if you’re being taped.
You’re going to have to live your life as if you
may be the next person, subject to these kinds
of personal pressures and if anybody thinks
that was paranoid, look what’s happened
since.”
The inspector general launched its investi-
gation into Make Your Date in April following a
Free Press report about Duggan’s relationship
with Make Your Date and Hassan. Duggan
worked with Wayne State University officials
to create the program, handpicked Hassan to
lead the initiative and ordered city staff to raise
money for Make Your Date. The city also direct-
ed more than $358,000 in federal grants to the
program.
The inspector general concluded that Dug-
gan showed Make Your Date preferential treat-
ment by selecting the program to partner with
the city in its fight against infant mortality.
Duggan defended the program’s selection
on Tuesday. He said addressing preterm birth
and at-risk pregnancies has been a top priority
for his administration and Hassan’s program
had the expertise to help Detroit expectant
mothers.
“We picked the right program,” Duggan said.
“The program has worked and there is no find-
ing anywhere in this report that says Make
Your Date doesn’t work, that $1 was misspent,
or that says this wasn’t the right program.
“I strongly believe in this program and I be-
lieve it was the right thing for pregnant moms
in the City of Detroit.”
Contact Joe Guillen: 313-222-6678 or jguillen
@freepress.com. Contact Kat Stafford:
kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

HOCKEY WORLD HONORS GROSSE POINTE BROTHERS KILLED IN FIRE

Pot edibles
A ‘sticks out’ salute are turning
METRO, 4A up in kids’
$300M project
for jail site
U-M “innovation center” and
lunches
hotel part of development at Michigan schools warning
former jail site in Detroit.
against them as laws change
John Wisely Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

Some Michigan schools are eyeing home-

made desserts with suspicion after finding
pot-laced brownies and candies in kids’
lunches.
Schools across Michigan have reported
cases of kids eating the drug-containing
treats, wittingly or unwittingly.
NATION+WORLD, 8A “With the recent changes to the recre-
ational marijuana laws in our state, many dis-
Officer testifies tricts, including ours, are experiencing issues
in Trump probe at the secondary school levels from students
bringing edibles onto school property,” Pon-
An Army officer raised tiac Schools Superintendent Kelley Williams
concerns of the Ukraine call wrote to parents in a letter earlier this month.
undermining U.S. security. Neighbors in Grosse Pointe leave hockey sticks on the front porch Tuesday in memory of Logan and “Due to the nature of edibles and the fact
Briggs Connolly, who were killed in a fire at their house Monday. JUNFU HAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS that they frequently resemble traditional
homemade baked goods and prepackaged
candy, we are strongly discouraging parents
Deaths of young players hit close-knit community hard from sending students to school with home-
baked snacks or prepackaged items, espe-
cially with unfamiliar branding.”
Tresa Baldas Detroit Free Press also a part of. Hockey-themed hashtags honoring Last year, Michigan voters approved a bal-
USA TODAY NETWORK the boys are popping up all over social media, in- lot measure to legalize recreational marijua-
cluding “#sticksoutforloganandbriggs“ and na, but users must be 21 and school districts
They were two young brothers who loved hock- “#stickstoheaven.” maintain zero tolerance policies for the drug
ey. According to fire officials, the brothers were in schools.
And the hockey world loved them in return. found in an upstairs bedroom during the three- Pontiac isn’t the only district to see the
LIFE+FOOD, 1C In an emotional salute across metro Detroit, alarm fire that started just before 8 a.m. on Fisher problem.
Let the gourd hockey sticks are being propped up against Road, a tree-lined street dotted with brick coloni- Grand Rapids schools have seen a few
houses in honor of Grosse Pointe siblings Logan als. Neighbors tried to help, but the fire was too cases of edible marijuana products showing
times roll and Briggs Connolly, who were killed in a house intense to get inside. Both parents were on the up in schools, but it hasn’t been widespread,
Lamb-stuffed squash is a fire Monday morning. Logan was 9, Briggs 11. way to work, but the boys were at home because spokesman John Hemboldt said.
satisfying winter meal. Their tragic deaths devastated the close-knit their school had a delayed start. That district is handling it through existing
community they lived in, along with their beloved rules related to drugs at schools, he said.
and extended hockey family that their dad was See HOCKEY SALUTE, Page 6A
See POT IN SCHOOLS, Page 6A
Inside today’s Free Press
❚ Obituaries ............................14A
❚ Classified..............................10B

City Council: We can’t go back to Kilpatrick era

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Weather It wants transparency from James Tate requested a resolution be drafted

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that demands action be taken.
Detroit
Inspector
mayor over deleted emails “In 2009, I decided to run because at the time General Ellen
we lived in a city ... where the mayor was going Ha answers
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen to jail, unfortunately,” Tate said, characterizing questions
Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK the deletion of emails as “questionable activ- from Detroit
ities.” City Council
The Detroit City Council is demanding “ap- “We come from a situation where people members
propriate discipline” for city employees who have completely lost their faith, or at least one about
ordered the deletion of emails related to the point in time, lost faith in government. It’s our preferential
nonprofit maternal health program whose ex- job to make sure we do our best to increase that treatment by
ecutive director has personal ties to Mayor trust.” the mayor’s

WEAHII-11000v
Mike Duggan. The council unanimously approved Tate’s office.
A week after Duggan announced he would request to draft the resolution and made MANDI WRIGHT/
not punish his chief of staff and others in- DETROIT FREE
volved in deleting the emails, Councilman See CITY COUNCIL, Page 7A PRESS

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Cover story
City Council member Roy McCalister Jr. questions City of Detroit corporation counsel Lawrence Garcia, left foreground, and Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha on Tuesday. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP
City Council
Continued from Page 1A
multiple other moves Tuesday to increase ac-
countability for issues raised in Inspector Gen-
eral Ellen Ha’s report on the Make Your Date
program, which Duggan, after he was elected,
picked to lead the city’s fight against infant
mortality.
The council’s actions on Tuesday suggest
the body is not satisfied with the administra-
tion’s response to Ha’s report, which recom-
mended discipline for the workers involved in
deleting the emails — Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s
chief of staff; Ryan Friedrichs, the city’s chief
development officer, and Sirene Abou-Chakra,
deputy chief development officer for the city.
In a news conference last week, Duggan
stressed that Ha did not identify any violations
of city ordinances or laws and he limited con-
sequences for deleting the emails to public rec-
ords training.
But Council President Brenda Jones said
Tuesday that she wants an ordinance requiring
the preservation of city emails for at least five
years to help ensure the city doesn’t repeat the
mistakes of past mayoral administrations.
“I want something stronger than a rule, I
want an ordinance,” Jones said.
“I don’t care anything about a policy. I want
law,” Jones said, referencing the corruption
that led to prison time for former mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick and other city officials. “Been there
once, don’t want to go through it again. ... I
want something on the books. An ordinance.”
The inspector general’s report also found
that Duggan gave the Make Your Date program
preferential treatment as part of the city’s fight
against infant mortality. The program was
picked without a competitive bidding process
and ultimately received more than $358,000 in
federal grants from the city.
Council President Pro Tem Mary Sheffield
said that Detroit residents deserve open and
transparent government that works for every-
one and not the benefit of a “select few.”
Sheffield made a motion to study ways to
ensure a fair and transparent selection process
for organizations hired to carry out mayoral
initiatives.
Sheffield said that elected officials are held
to certain standards by the public and those
same standards must be applied to all elected
officials regardless of the office they hold.
“The circumstances outlined in the Inspec-
tor General’s report, released Oct. 21, regarding
Make Your Date represents a departure from
those standards and should be met with the
appropriate response and consequences,”
Sheffield told the Free Press.
Wiley, one of Detroit’s highest-ranking offi-
cials, abused her authority by twice ordering
city staff to delete their emails related to Make
Your Date as the mayor’s ties came under scru-
tiny by the Free Press and others, the report
found. The revelation that Wiley was behind
more than 200 pages of mysteriously deleted
Mayoral Chief of Staff Alexis Wiley twice
ordered city employees to delete emails
relating to the Make Your Date nonprofit,
according to the Detroit Office of Inspector
General. The OIG recommended discipline for
Wiley and two other employees for ordering
the deletions. KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/DFP
emails was one of several instances of miscon-
duct cited in the report surrounding the city’s
relationship with Make Your Date. Friedrichs
and Abou-Chakra helped carry out Wiley’s or-
ders, the inspector general found.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Corpo-
ration Counsel Lawrence Garcia, the city’s top
government lawyer, reiterated Duggan’s posi-
tion that the inspector general found no poli-
cies or laws had been broken regarding the de-
leted emails.
Ha, who stood alongside Garcia during the
meeting answering council members’ ques-
tions, disputed that characterization after
leaving the council meeting.
“There’s another agency that is investigat-
ing the deletions of emails from a criminal as-
pect so we did not look into any of the city’s
policies, regulations or the record retention
schedule or any Michigan statute that would
apply in this situation,” Ha said.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s
public integrity unit is investigating the matter.
When asked whether the inspector general’s
office is at all assisting with that investigation,
Ha said they are “to a certain extent” but de-
clined further comment.
Garcia told the council that whether or not
deleting the emails was proper depends on
whether the messages are considered “official”
records that document official acts of the city
government.
When Wiley first ordered the emails to be
deleted in December, the city had not yet re-
ceived a Freedom of Information Act request
for the emails. But it had received other public
records requests for information about Make
Your Date. “Any reasonable person could as-
sume that the request was coming” for the
emails that were deleted, Ha wrote in her re-
port.
Councilman Roy McCalister Jr. quizzed Gar-
cia on when it would be appropriate for a city
employee to delete emails.
Garcia, who will be leading the public rec-
ords training for Wiley, Friedrichs and Abou-
Chakra, suggested there are times when it is
OK for workers to delete emails.
FREEP.COM ❚ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2019 ❚ 7A
“I place a lot of faith in the rules and if the
rules allow for the emails to be destroyed in an-
ticipation of a FOIA that is not yet pending,
then I think everyone is within their right to
play by the rules that existed at that time and
destroy whatever their conscious will allow,”
Garcia told the council. “And so, under the
rules, there is no sanction or penalty for delet-
ing emails that are perfectly, appropriately de-
leted under the existing set of rules at the time
the deletion was performed. But if someone
anticipates a question and destroys informa-
tion that is pertinent to that question before it
is posed, that tends to undercut your credibil-
ity and faith in that person.”
After the meeting, Garcia was evasive when
speaking with the Free Press about the city’s
rules for preserving records. He said the city’s
records retention polices are “built off ” of the
state’s policy, but he would not answer ques-
tions about whether the city’s policy included a
provision in the state’s rules that require gen-
eral correspondence, including certain emails,
be kept for two years.
“I think you know the answer. Good talking
to you,” Garcia said as he walked away from a
group of reporters.
The inspector general launched its investi-
gation into Make Your Date in April following a
Free Press report about Duggan’s relationship
with Make Your Date and its director, Dr. Sonia
Hassan. Duggan worked with Wayne State
University officials to create the program,
handpicked Hassan to lead the initiative and
ordered city staff to raise money for Make Your
Date.
Ha’s report confirmed details in numerous
Free Press’ investigative reports and included
new information about additional city re-
sources provided to Make Your Date. General
fund money was earmarked for Lyft rides for
Make Your Date participants and the city’s
health department was expected to perform an
inordinate amount of work for the program.
Workers in the department felt pressured by
the mayor’s office to recruit women to Make
Your Date, the OIG found.
If there was ever a problem with the health
department, Make Your Date “would go direct-
ly to the mayor’s office and the mayor would
call the DHD Director who would, in turn, scold
the DHD staff regardless of fault,” one health
department worker told the inspector general.
Eli Savit, who serves as senior adviser and
counsel to Duggan, disputed the inspector gen-
eral’s findings in a 32-page response dated
Oct. 14. Savit indicated that Ha’s findings are
not supported by facts or applicable legal stan-
dards.
“The draft findings, moreover, threaten to
impose severe, unwarranted damage to the
reputation of several public servants — and
further threaten to stymie effective govern-
ance in the City of Detroit,” Savit wrote in his
response.
Savit’s response was also on behalf of Wiley,
Friedrichs and Abou-Chakra. Savit requested
that the inspector general reverse her findings,
but Ha maintained her position: “We believe
both the OIG’s report and the joint-written re-
sponse speak for themselves,” she wrote in the
report and since followed up with public com-
ments that the city should take the findings
and recommendations seriously.
Ha again stood by her office’s findings on
Tuesday, saying she was “very, very proud of
our work product.”
The inspector general interviewed Duggan
but did not investigate the nature of his rela-
tionship with Hassan. The city’s ordinance
prohibiting officials from making decisions for
financial gain requires them only to disclose
personal relationships such as those with a
spouse or domestic partner. The inspector gen-
eral determined Duggan’s relationship with
Hassan was irrelevant to the investigation.
In light of the concerns raised about the
city’s support for Make Your Date, Council-
woman Raquel Castañeda-López requested
the council’s research division to review other
contracts and agreements that are in place to
carry out the mayor’s initiatives.
Castañeda-López implored the administra-
tion to proactively work to restore transparen-
cy and trust in city government, rather than to
take a defensive posture in response to criti-
cism.
“It has to be more than this body asking for
reports,” she said. “It really has to be a culture
shift within the administration that moves to
one of being more proactive of promoting
transparency and fostering trust among resi-
dents.”
Duggan fully supports any record retention
ordinance that City Council passes as long as it
applies equally to all branches of city govern-
ment, Garcia said in a statement on Tuesday
afternoon.
In assessing her findings, Ha determined
Wiley’s orders to delete city emails about Make
Your Date were “more egregious” than the pref-
erential treatment shown to Make Your Date.
The inspector general report paints a trou-
bling portrait of Wiley, the former Fox 2 report-
er who became Duggan’s chief of staff shortly
after he took office in 2014.
Known as a fierce Duggan loyalist, Wiley
acted swiftly to conceal information about the
city’s ties to Make Your Date just as Duggan’s
relationship with Hassan was coming into
public view late last year.
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na-
tive, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Journal-
ists. She was recently named an Ida B. Wells
Fellow, a national investigative reporting fel-
lowship. Contact her at kstafford@free-
press.com or 313-223-4759.
Joe Guillen has been covering city govern-
ance and development issues for the newspa-
per since 2013. He has covered Detroit city hall,
been a member of the investigations team and
previously worked at The (Cleveland) Plain
Dealer covering county and state government.
Contact him at 313-222-6678 or jguillen@free-
press.com.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM
BUSINESS, 10A
Stark images of
Lordstown plant
Artist captures final days of
auto plant as sale announced.
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Trade for former first-round
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MOVIES+LIFE, 1C
‘Doctor Sleep’ will
keep you awake
“The Shining” sequel will leave
King fans’ jaws on the floor.
Inside today’s Free Press
❚ Obituaries ............................12A
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Preterm births
Spirits of Detroit
Brian Manzullo
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
Founders’
soar in Detroit Detroit plan:
We want to
build bridges
Brewery to make changes,
reopen taproom in 2020
Founders Brewing Co. has a plan in place
for its Detroit taproom — and for rebuilding
the goodwill it lost in the local and craft beer
communities.
Time will tell if it will be enough as Michi-
gan’s largest brewery continues to face scru-
tiny.
One week after Founders settled a racial
discrimination lawsuit a fired employee filed
against it last year, co-founders Dave Engbers
and Mike Stevens said Thursday that they
plan to reopen Founders’ popular Detroit tap-
room at 456 Charlotte St. in early 2020.
Engbers and Stevens, who established
Founders in 1997, also said:
❚ Founders plans to donate 100% of the
profits from the reopened taproom to Detroit
charities and community organizations
through at least 2022.
❚
See FOUNDERS, Page 6A
Babies like the one shown here in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at DMC Hutzel Women’s Hospital in 2014
are among hundreds born prematurely in Detroit each year. KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Duggan touts success of Make Your Promising signs
Date but stats show problem persists
Kat Stafford, Kristi Tanner and Joe Guillen
“It is is very
concerning. on state budget
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK But changing deal fall through
those
Despite recent claims that the City of Detroit’s handpicked Paul Egan and Kathleen Gray
program to fight preterm birth is uniquely successful, the city’s
dynamics is a Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
preterm birth rate is now at a 13-year high, according to the lat- decades-long
est statistics from the State of Michigan.
The newest state data comes on the heels of Mayor Mike and LANSING – A possible deal to end an im-
Duggan’s vigorous public defenses of the Make Your Date pro- generational passe over the 2020 budget and restore hun-
gram’s efforts to fight preterm birth. The mayor was compelled dreds of millions of dollars in cuts to a wide
to defend the program after a critical inspector general’s report commitment.” range of programs fell through Thursday
found that the mayor gave Make Your Date preferential treat- when the Republican leader in the Senate de-
Dr. Ray
ment when teaming up five years ago. Bahado-Singh clined to sign on.
This week, the March of Dimes ranked Detroit the second- Chair of Obstetrics and The proposed deal, reportedly agreed to in
worst city nationally for its preterm birth rate in 2017, earning Gynecology for Beaumont principle by Democratic Gov. Gretchen
Health, talking about the
the city an “F” grade. city’s preterm birth rate Whitmer and House Speaker Lee Chatfield,
Reacting to the spike in the city’s preterm birth rate, a city R-Levering, fell apart over the same issue that
official and an academic researcher said Make Your Date isn’t has separated Whitmer and GOP leaders for
operating on a large enough scale to make a significant impact. the last six weeks — demands that Whitmer
Yet Duggan has publicly touted the achievements of Make formally restrict her powers to shift funds
Your Date as confirmation that the program was worth his spe- within state agencies without legislative ap-
cial consideration. On two occasions — at a news conference proval.
and on a local TV news appearance — Duggan said that moms Whitmer had promised not to use the State
See PRETERM BIRTHS, Page 7A See BUDGET DEAL, Page 6A

Cover story Free Press investigation
Preterm births
Continued from Page 1A
who participated in Make Your Date had a 37% reduction in pre-
term births.
“We picked the right program,” Duggan said at a news confer-
ence in late October after release of the OIG report. “The pro-
gram has worked and there is no finding anywhere in this report
that says Make Your Date doesn’t work, that a dollar was mis-
spent or says that this wasn’t the right program.”
Make Your Date’s success also was included in an official re-
sponse to the inspector general that requested a reversal of
findings that were critical of the city’s support for Make Your
Date. “Women who received services from WSU via the Make
Your Date program experienced a reduction of up to 37% in pre-
term births,” Eli Savit, who serves as senior adviser and counsel
to Duggan, wrote to Inspector General Ellen Ha on behalf of
Duggan and others.
The mayor’s claims about Make Your Date’s impact can be
traced to a Wayne State University study announced in
September that analyzed data from 1,945 women who partici-
pated in the program in 2014 and 2015. According to a Wayne
State news release, the study found that Make Your Date partic-
ipants were 37% less likely to deliver at less than 32 weeks than
women who gave birth at the same hospital but were not served
by Make Your Date.
“Our study showed evidence that the Make Your Date pro-
gram reduces the rate of early preterm delivery in the popula-
tion studied,” Wayne State professor of obstetrics and gynecol-
ogy Adi Tarca said in a statement to the Free Press. “However,
the Make Your Date program has only reached a fraction of
women in the city. In order to make a significant impact on the
rate of preterm birth in the entire city of Detroit, the program
would need to be expanded.”
The Free Press asked Wayne State for a copy of Tarca’s study
showing Make Your Date’s effectiveness. Wayne State did not
provide the study, explaining that it has not yet been published.
Maternal health experts said Detroit’s high preterm birth rate
cannot be attributed to any single factor and the causes of pre-
mature delivery are vast and complex. Premature birth can be
caused by chronic health conditions such as diabetes or high
blood pressure.
But many health professionals agree Detroit women also face
socioeconomic determinants such as lack of access to prenatal
care and health insurance and implicit bias in the medical field.
Other systemic issues such as inequity, poverty, racism and
discrimination also are driving factors, according to Michigan’s
Mother Infant Health and Equity Improvement Plan.
Detroit’s preterm birth rate rose to 15.3% in 2018 — the high-
est since 2005. The 2018 figure represents a “significant in-
crease” from 13% in 2013, according to the state health depart-
ment.
Of the 9,476 births in Detroit last year, 1,451 babies were born
prematurely — before 37 weeks — according to state data.
Michigan’s preterm birth rate dropped slightly from 10.2% in
2017 to 10% in 2018. The state’s lowest rate since 2000 was 9.7%
in both 2013 and 2014. Nationwide, the preterm birth rate has
increased for the last four consecutive years to 10% in 2018.
Health educators and physicians who spoke with the Free
Press in a series of interviews said the city’s preterm birth rate
— as well as infant mortality and maternal health — has long
troubled professionals.
“It is is very concerning,” Dr. Ray Bahado-Singh, chair of Ob-
stetrics and Gynecology for Beaumont Health, said about the
city’s rate. “But changing those dynamics is a decades-long and
generational commitment. So, I believe progress will continue
to be incremental and, in my view, explains why the prematuri-
ty rate is so high in Detroit because as everyone knows, there’s
really a significant disparity in Michigan, most particularly in
Detroit.”
This week, the March of Dimes released its annual preterm
birth report card, which grades all 50 states and the 100 largest
cities with the most births. The 2019 report card analyzed 2017
local and state data from 2018.
At 14.3%, Detroit had the second-highest preterm birth rate
among the 100 cities that the March of Dimes studied. Cleve-
land was No. 1 with a preterm birth rate of 14.5%.
Although Detroit nearly topped the list, the March of Dimes
noted it’s encouraged by the amount of organizations coming
together to jointly dedicate resources to the problem.
Kara Hamilton-McGraw, director of maternal child heath and
government affairs for March of Dimes in Michigan, said the or-
ganization is also pleased with Make Your Date’s efforts.
“These rates are not acceptable but I believe we can find a
rejuvenated hope,” Hamilton-McGraw said. “What I see in WIN
Network and and other programs such as Make Your Date, the
Black Mothers Breastfeeding Coalition in Detroit, these pro-
grams are looking to provide wraparound services. And we’re
seeing that addressing the woman as a whole, and not just a
pregnancy, is really having fantastic outcomes.”
Dawn Shanafelt, director of the Division of Maternal and In-
fant Health at MDHHS, declined to comment specifically on
Make Your Date’s impact, but said the state is closely watching
Detroit’s preterm birth rate.
“Premature births and low birth weight babies are the pri-
mary drivers to infant mortality,” she said. “So, it’s a critical fo-
cus area and a serious public health concern.”
Shanafelt said infant mortality rates in Detroit and southeast
Michigan are among the state’s highest.
The problem
The City of Detroit has historically struggled to address its
high rate of preterm birth, which is an issue that disproportion-
ately impacts African American women across the country. De-
troit has one of the nation’s largest African American popula-
tions — 78% of its residents are black.
African American women are 42% of the city’s total popula-
tion, according to 2018 Census estimates.
“I think it’s hard to not be concerned about living in a state
that has only a C grade for preterm birth but also for our primary
city, Detroit, to have such a high preterm birth rate,” said Dr.
Marjorie Treadwell, University of Michigan’s director of the Fe-
tal Diagnostic center and a maternal-fetal physician. “I can’t
think that anybody would think that was acceptable or would
be comfortable with that.”
Premature birth is defined as a live birth before 37 weeks.
“There are certain things that just set out your life course and
your gestational age at delivery is one of those things that has
the potential to impact the rest of your life,” Treadwell said. “We
need to provide mothers and their babies with the best possible
start to their life and being able to improve their condition and
their health at birth is probably one of the major ways we can do
that.”
Babies that are born too early can face several issues, includ-
ing cerebral palsy, visual and hearing impairments, heart prob-
lems and more. Preterm birth complications are also the leading
cause of death among children under the age of 5, according to
the World Health Organization.
“I think the entire medical community continues to be frus-
trated with the health disparities that we continue to see,” Dr.
Courtney Townsel, a University of Michigan maternal fetal
medicine specialist, said. “I think it’s highlighted by cities like
Detroit and the top 10 cities which have high rates of African
American patient populations. So, really trying to understand
how we reduce these health care disparities is really at the heart
of this.”
Statewide, 14.8% of births to African American mothers were
premature last year, according to state data. In Detroit, the rate
was 16.3%.
Fighting infant mortality was a campaign platform for Dug-
gan. When he took office in 2014, the mayor asked Wayne State
and Dr. Sonia Hassan, an associate dean of maternal, perinatal
and child health at the university, to join the city’s efforts to en-
sure that Detroit mothers deliver healthy babies.
Make Your Date was launched in May 2014 and since has
served more than 5,800 pregnant women in Detroit.
Make Your Date’s strategy focuses on cervical length screen-
ings, pregnancy education classes and group prenatal care.
Hassan is the program’s director. She and Duggan were seen
last summer meeting after hours at a suburban residence. A pri-
vate eye hired by an opponent of Duggan’s followed the mayor
and filmed his movements away from city hall.
A spokesman for Hassan declined to comment.
Make Your Date and other programs supported by the Detroit
health department only reach about 10% of Detroit’s pregnant
moms and are not yet having a significant impact on the city’s
preterm birth rate, said the city’s chief public health officer, De-
nise Fair.
Programs like Make Your Date need to be greatly expanded to
help direct pregnant moms into the city’s system of health care
providers, Fair said.
“If we can succeed in getting our pregnant moms into that
health care system with proper support, I do believe we can ef-
fectively reduce the unacceptably high preterm birth rate in this
community,” she said in a statement.
How to fix it
Health experts have stated that even normally predictive
factors such as education and access to health care don’t fully
address the issue. Many agree a holistic approach that also ex-
amines social determinants of health, particularly implicit bias,
is key.
“We do that by, No. 1, listening to our patients, and women of
color,” Townsel said. “We don’t always do a great job of hearing
them and validating their concerns when they are brought
FREEP.COM ❚ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019 ❚ 7A
Detroit
Mayor Mike
Duggan
speaks to
the media in
October
regarding
the
controversy
surrounding
Make Your
Date. “We
picked the
right
program,” he
said of the
preterm
maternity
program.
MANDI WRIGHT
/DETROIT FREE
PRESS
forth. I think another thing we can do as health care providers is
actually get outside of our four walls, clinics, offices in our hos-
pitals and really try to engage with communities of color, un-
derstanding, sort of, the social and community context, their
neighborhood environment and really how that impacts their
health and their day-to-day lives.”
Townsel and Treadwell said U-M has instituted group prena-
tal care and other innovative mechanisms to provide care.
“I think we’ve really got to meet patients where they are and
really understand what is it that the community is saying,”
Townsel said.
Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom, the senior vice president of
Community Health & Equity for the Henry Ford Health System,
said a lot of work has been done over the past decade to address
premature birth and infant mortality, but challenges remain.
Wisdom said a joint effort began in 2008 among Detroit’s
major health systems, which took inventory of how many or-
ganizations were working on the issue. At least 100 organiza-
tions were identified, Wisdom said, but many of them were op-
erating on a small scale and not reaching a significant number
of women and babies.
“We know there are efforts that work well and have been very
successful,” Wisdom said. “Now it’s a matter of how can we
spread and scale the work across so that more and more women
have access.”
Wisdom launched the Women-Inspired Neighborhood
(WIN) Network which aims to improve access to health care and
reduce infant mortality in neighborhoods in Detroit. The or-
ganization engages women in the community, Wisdom said,
and focuses heavily on group prenatal care, which has been
successful.
“There’s no question that community outreach is the game
changer,” Wisdom said. “These women had an amazing support
system in place that helps them feel like they’re not having to
navigate pregnancy and a lot of other challenging situations in
their lives alone.”
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government watchdog reporter for
the Free Press, covering city issues and the community. A De-
troit native, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit chapter of
the Society of Professional Journalists. Contact her at kstaf-
ford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
Joe Guillen has been covering city governance and develop-
ment issues for the newspaper since 2013. Contact him at 313-
222-6678 or jguillen@freepress.com.
Kristi Tanner is a reporter on the Free Press Investigations
Team. Contact her at 313-222-8877 or ktanner@freepress.com.
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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019 ❚ FREEP.COM PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

AG executes search at city office

Computer info is sought
in Make Your Date probe
Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen
Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s
Office executed a search warrant Friday related
to its Make Your Date investigation, seeking in-
formation from the city’s information technol-
ogy department.
A spokesman for Nessel could not describe
what authorities took during their search, but
did confirm the search warrant involved the
city’s information technology operations at the
Detroit Public Safety Headquarters on Third
Street. Michigan State Police assisted in the
execution of the warrant.
“I can confirm that a search warrant was ex-
ecuted today on the City of Detroit’s IT depart-
ment,” spokesman Dan Olsen told the Free
Press.
For several months, Nessel’s criminal divi-
sion has been investigating allegations that
city employees were ordered to delete govern-
ment emails to hide the city’s support of the
Make Your Date prenatal care program.
“We are cooperating fully with the Attorney
General’s investigation. In fact, I spent much of
my day working closely with her staff,” Corpo-
ration Counsel Lawrence Garcia said late Fri-
day.
A recent Detroit inspector general’s report
found that Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s chief of staff,
twice ordered city workers to delete emails re-
lated to Make Your Date. Inspector General El-
len Ha recommended discipline for Wiley and
two other city officials complicit in carrying out
her orders to delete the emails.
Ha called Wiley’s actions egregious. She did
not determine whether Wiley broke any laws,
deferring that decision to Nessel. Attorney General Dana Nessel has been
investigating allegations that city employees
See AG SEARCH, Page 6A deleted emails. KATHLEEN GALLIGAN/DFP

Fix in UAW-Ford FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL 30TH ANNIVERSARY

Detroit
deal to boost demolition
raises for 10,000
Phoebe Wall Howard audit reveals
big concerns
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK

Contract negotiators for Ford Motor Co.

and the UAW rewrote a passage in their tenta-
tive agreement — while members are voting
on the deal — that will increase pay for nearly
10,000 workers in an attempt to ensure rat-
ification.
“It was a glitch,” said a person with knowl-
edge of the situation not authorized to dis-
cuss the matter. “This just shows the commit-
ment of the company to work with the union
to make sure that this agreement is what it
was meant to be for all the employees.”
The adjustment could cost Ford an extra
$15 million or so over the four-year contract, a
person with knowledge of the situation but
not authorized to speak publicly told the De-
troit Free Press.
Basically, the contract language change
City says data outdated;
Report: Program a mess
Kat Stafford
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
On the eve of a City Council vote that may
advance Mayor Mike Duggan’s $250 million
blight bond proposal, a blistering Detroit Au-
ditor General report concluded Friday the
city’s demolition program has been misman-
A West German takes a hammer and chisel to the Berlin Wall on Nov. 11, 1989, amid aged and beset with significant problems for
euphoria that reigned for days after East German authorities opened it. DAVID C. TURNLEY/DFP the past four years.
The sweeping audit revealed the Detroit
Building Authority— along with one or more

WSU professor knew he

accommodates a calendar hiccup. city departments in some instances: failed to
The revision allows the union to synchro- properly provide oversight and administer
nize the worker pay raise schedule. In short, contracts; did not fully comply with some lo-

was ‘witnessing history’

newer workers who have already received cal and state laws; didn’t monitor to ensure
their annual pay raises would get retroactive
pay to catch up to the new contract’s better See DEMOLITION, Page 6A
pay scale that would take effect upon ratifica-
tion Nov. 15.
According to a UAW memo distributed at
Ford plants titled, “In-progression wage tran-
He tells of Omar Abdel-Baqui Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY NETWORK

sition disparity issue has been fixed!” the amazing Andrew Port didn’t anticipate a seat he took on a train
change prevented the unintentional penaliz-
ing of workers with an employment anniver-
memories while studying abroad in Europe in 1987 would change his
life forever.
sary date prior to scheduled ratification. of the But that train ride ended up being Port’s ticket to wit-
“In-progression” workers are those hired nessing history — the fall of the Berlin Wall in November
since 2007, and who earn less than so-called
events of 1989.
Wayne
State
legacy workers. November Port — then a junior in college and now a Wayne State history A blistering Detroit Auditor General report
Both Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker and University professor — sparked a conversation with a professor concluded the city’s demolition program has
1989 Andrew been mismanaged and beset with problems
See UAW-FORD FIX, Page 5A See BERLIN WALL, Page 7A Port. for the past four years. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP

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Cover stories
Demolition
Continued from Page 1A
that demolition contractors met requirements.
Auditor General Mark Lockridge also blast-
ed the city for having “inconsistent and unreli-
able” demolition data, as well as poor record
keeping that made it difficult to perform the
audit.
“A perception that public officials are using
the procurement system to reward themselves,
their friends, or supporters, poisons the pub-
lic’s confidence in government and shakes its
faith in the bureaucratic process,” he wrote.
But DBA Director Tyrone Clifton countered
the findings in a lengthy Friday response that
accused the office of producing an audit that
represented an “unrepresentative, outdated
sample of demolition files (that) severely un-
dermines the report.”
Clifton argued that the audit didn’t include a
sampling from more recent demolitions.
Lockridge said in an interview after receiv-
ing the response that his office was “really ap-
palled” by the city’s response because he be-
lieves it doesn’t speak to the issues raised in
the audit. He also disagreed with the city’s as-
sertion that the data produced a flawed audit.
“They said the population data ‘we gave to
you is flawed,’ “ Lockridge said. “...They have
not been responsive to us until this bond issue.
… It is also disingenuous that they would not
address our findings in a more genuine way
and take ownership of their flawed data.”
Lockridge said in the report that his office,
which is an independent agency, was forced to
subpoena the DBA twice during the course of
the more than two-year audit in an attempt to
receive pertinent information.
The office encountered significant delays
and a “lack of responsiveness,” and according
to Lockridge, he never fully received every-
thing his office asked for.
“There was almost a one-year delay in re-
ceiving information for our first audit sample,”
Lockridge wrote. “During these periods, we
found it necessary to twice subpoena one of
the entities for the requested documents. Still,
they were unable to provide all of the informa-
tion, data, documents, reports, etc. that should
be available for adequate administration of
demolition and demolition-related activities.”
The audit raises fresh questions about the
effectiveness of the beleaguered program’s
quality controls which came under renewed
scrutiny earlier this year after a series of Free
Press investigative reports that led to congres-
sional calls for more oversight.
The report, which specifically looked at city-
funded demolitions, determined the city’s
processes lacked “transparency, accuracy and
completeness.”
As a result, unnamed contractors were able
to skirt regulations and also failed to provide
proper documentation, such as landfill and dirt
receipts that were required to verify where
they took potentially asbestos-laden materials
and whether they used clean backfill dirt to fill
holes.
Some contractors also did not provide the
city with necessary paperwork that was re-
quired for payment and in some instances they
began demolitions prior to receiving permis-
sion.
AG search
Continued from Page 1A
“She (Wiley) did have an intention to make
those emails disappear, which we find egre-
gious because the whole point of open govern-
ment is so that people see what went on. And to
have those records disappear is just not only a
violation of spirit of openness but, quite frank-
ly, it really puts a shadow over the government
that’s supposed to be transparent,” Ha told the
Free Press late last month when her report was
released.
The inspector general launched its investi-
gation into Make Your Date in April following a
Free Press report about Duggan’s relationship
with Make Your Date and its director, Dr. Sonia
Hassan. Duggan worked with Wayne State
University officials to create the program,
handpicked Hassan to lead the initiative and
ordered city staff to raise money for Make Your
Date. The city also directed more than
$358,000 in federal grants to the program.
Ha’s report found Duggan gave Make Your
Date preferential treatment. Her report con-
firmed details in numerous Free Press investi-
gative reports and included new information
about additional city resources provided to
Make Your Date. General fund money was ear-
marked for Lyft rides for Make Your Date par-
ticipants and the city’s health department was
expected to perform an inordinate amount of
work for the program. Workers in the depart-
ment felt pressured by the mayor’s office to
recruit women to Make Your Date, the OIG
found.
Duggan so far has declined to punish Wiley.
She and the two other employees — chief de-
velopment officer Ryan Friedrichs and his dep-
uty, Sirene Abou-Chakra — were told to under-
The Chicago-based McDonagh Demolition was ordered to excavate a demolition site in the
13000 block of Maiden St. on Detroit’s east side on Feb. 22. MANDI WRIGHT/DETROIT FREE PRESS
In auditing the program, the auditor general
selected 47 demolished properties as part of a
random sample pool to examine the program’s
efficiency. These are some of the auditor gener-
al’s findings:
❚ There was no evidence that asbestos
waste was disposed in a required Type II land-
fill.
❚ There was no evidence that contractors
complied with “wet-wet” requirements, which
require that materials be wet down during the
demolition process.
❚ No documentation was found that proved
the top soil used was uncontaminated.
❚ No evidence that the sites were monitored
by the city or any representatives during all
phases of the demolition and backfill process.
❚ None of the contractors submitted landfill
receipts or waste manifests with invoices, as
required within 10 days of the completion of
the project in order to be paid.
❚ Documents were missing from all con-
tracts prior to payment.
❚ None of the contractors submitted weekly
backfill material tracking logs , which would
have shown where the dirt materials came
from.
But according to the report, the administra-
tion has pushed back vehemently on the find-
ings.
Lockridge noted the office presented its ini-
tial findings to the affected departments in
June 2018 and released a preliminary report to
the departments and agencies in February
2019. The office received a coordinated re-
sponse from all of the departments indicating
that the auditor’s sample of properties was “old
and stale” and did not include new processes
that had been put in place to correct document-
ed issues.
The auditor general’s office tested a new
sample group of 62 properties, according to the
report, and reached similar conclusions.
The release of the report comes just days be-
fore council is set to consider the bond propos-
al on Tuesday, which the administration has
touted as the city’s emergent plan to remove
the remainder of the city’s residential blight by
2025.
go public records training. In statements and
public appearances, Duggan downplayed the
OIG findings and insisted no wrongdoing had
been uncovered.
Days later, Ha appeared before the Detroit
City Council to debrief officials on the major
findings of the report, stressing how important
it was that there be accountability among gov-
ernment staff and officials.
City Council passed a resolution this week
urging Duggan to issue “an appropriate level of
discipline” for the deleted emails.
“The mayor has not acknowledged the se-
verity of the findings and their impact on pub-
lic trust and the integrity of City of Detroit gov-
ernment,” the resolution reads. “The Detroit
City Council urgently requests that the mayor
take actions that are more appropriate to the
gravamen of the underlying acts to help rein-
state trust and integrity to the city’s processes
by respecting the findings and recommenda-
tions of the OIG and issuing an appropriate lev-
el of discipline beyond needed training to ef-
fectively restore public confidence in city gov-
ernment.”
It is illegal in Michigan to destroy public rec-
ords. General correspondence records — which
city emails are often classified as — must be
preserved for at least two years, according to
the state policy followed by the City of Detroit.
The policy states that “records cannot be de-
stroyed unless their disposition is authorized
by an approved retention and disposal sched-
ule.”
Furthermore, records cannot be disposed of
if they are part of a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request, investigation or lawsuit.
Wiley first ordered city staff to delete Make
Your Date emails in December 2018, according
to the inspector general’s report. It was not
long after surveillance footage was broadcast
outside City Hall showing Duggan meeting af-
The auditor general’s report also sheds light
for the first time publicly on the total amount
the city has spent since Duggan first began his
aggressive blight effort shortly after he took of-
fice in January 2014.
The price tag so far? A staggering $532 mil-
lion that is a mix of city, federal Hardest Hit
Funds and other designated monies.
If the bond measure is approved by council,
it will go before voters in March 2020. If given
the green light by voters, total possible spend-
ing on blight removal over the next five years,
including funds allocated outside of the bond
proposal, could be as much as $500 million, ac-
cording to a report written by council’s legisla-
tive policy division.
So, by 2025, the city may have spent up-
wards of $1 billion on blight remediation,
thanks to the bond and other funding mecha-
nisms the city has planned for the next several
years.
The audit also raises questions about the
true cost of demolitions per structure. Of the
$532 million spent thus far, about $330 million
can be attributed directly to the hard costs to
demolish more than 19,175 structures across
Detroit.
Of that, $202 million has been invested in
administrative and other “soft” costs which in-
clude pre-demolition activities such as proper-
ty surveys and personnel and other costs.
The auditor general found that the average
cost per structure based on the 19,175 homes
demolished thus far is $17,198.
But according to the audit, the average total
cost per structure is significantly higher at
$27,756 when you factor in the administrative
and “soft costs.”
The audit, which focused on city-funded
demolitions, was launched in October 2015,
when the Detroit City Council requested the of-
fice audit the city’s demolition program.
The office looked at the program’s operation
between Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 31, 2018
The demolition program is currently jointly
overseen by the DBA and the Detroit Land
Bank Authority. Duggan announced earlier this
year the city would regain full control of its
demolition program by January 2020 but, at
ter hours with Dr. Sonia Hassan, Make Your
Date’s director, at a suburban residence.
Wiley told Friedrichs to have two develop-
ment officers who worked in his office, Mo-
nique Phillips and Claire Huttenlocher, delete
their emails related to Make Your Date. Phillips
and Huttenlocher worked in the city’s Office of
Development and Grants and were tasked with
helping raise money for the program.
A second directive to delete emails came
from Wiley in February, after Huttenlocher
continued to send Make Your Date emails
about fundraising.
Duggan said he and Dave Massaron, the
city’s chief financial officer, learned about the
deleted emails in May and began trying to re-
cover them.
The city recovered more than 200 pages of
deleted emails. The messages showed that the
city was engaged in a robust fundraising effort
to support Make Your Date, contrary to a public
statement Wiley previously made that the city
only made preliminary inquiries on Make Your
Date’s behalf.
The OIG noted “it still cannot be definitely
stated that all deleted MYD emails were recov-
ered.”
The inspector general concluded in her re-
port that Wiley abused her authority by order-
ing the deletion of emails. In an interview with
the inspector general, Wiley said that she did
not try to recover the emails once she learned
of the problem. “I did not view it as that big of a
deal. I did not view it as they did something
wrong,” Wiley said, according to the inspector
general report.
There was no evidence that Duggan directed
Wiley or knew about her orders to delete
emails, the inspector general found.
Duggan has said the emails were deleted out
of a desire to protect Phillips and Huttenlocher
from scrutiny.
the time, the DBA was still slated to play a ma-
jor role in the program’s administration.
Lockridge, noted, however, the program
should be brought fully under the city’s con-
trol, noting that its current processes are “con-
voluted, complex and change often.”
“We recommend that the administration
consider bringing the program management of
demolition under the auspices of the city and
under a single organization versus the current
matrix organization structure,” Lockridge
wrote.
Questions about the city’s management of
the demolition program were raised in Sep-
tember when Detroit Chief Financial Officer
Dave Massaron met with Free Press reporters
and editors to advocate for the demolition bond
proposal.
Detroiters recognize the city is running the
“largest demolition program in the history of
this country,” Massaron said, and the program
has evolved over the last five years to address
problems that have cropped up.
“We’ve done this 19,000 times and we’ve
learned a lot,” Massaron said. “When you do
something this repetitive, this massive, there
are going to be things you’re going to need to
adjust. There are going to be things that don’t
go as well as you want on the front end. But I
think that what we’ve learned is how to quickly
identify those areas and change course to
make sure that we’re giving either the best val-
ue for the dollar or driving equity and inclusion
in this process.”
Duggan also downplayed the demolition
program’s previous problems during a recent
appearance on WDIV-TV (Channel 4) “Flash-
point” program in which he was asked about
putting the bond before voters.
Duggan conceded that the city had to clean
up the program when the U.S. Department of
the Treasury suspended the city’s federally
funded demolitions in 2016. But the program
has improved since then, the mayor said.
Amid the federal investigation, which is on-
going, two men were charged and convicted in
the probe. The Free Press first reported earlier
this year that contaminated dirt was potential-
ly used to fill demolition sites across Detroit.
The Special Inspector General for the Troubled
Asset Relief Program is also probing whether
some companies used free dirt obtained from a
variety of unverified sources — including the
I-96 freeway construction project — and then
passed it off as an approved residential dirt
source.
SIGTARP is currently auditing the city’s fed-
erally-funded demolitions at the request of
congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Brenda
Lawrence.
But Duggan, in late October, minimized the
program’s ongoing scrutiny.
“One low-level staff person that we fired two
years ago took the guilty plea and the feds have
indicated they expect no other charges against
any other public official, so let’s not overstate
this,” Duggan said.
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na-
tive, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Journal-
ists. She was recently named an Ida B. Wells
Fellow, a national investigative reporting fel-
lowship. Contact her at kstafford@
freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
The allegation that employees were directed
to delete emails was initially made by Kennedy
Shannon, a former assistant director in the de-
velopment and grants office. Shannon told the
Free Press in the summer that Phillips ap-
proached her in April to talk about the deleted
emails, days after publication of the Free Press’
investigation into Make Your Date and Dug-
gan’s ties to Hassan.
Shannon told the Free Press on Friday that
she recently met with an investigator and two
criminal prosecutors from the attorney gener-
al’s office more than a month ago, who indicat-
ed the investigation was ongoing.
Shannon declined to share details about the
nature of the conversation.
Shannon said Friday after learning about
the search warrant execution she feels she
made the right decision in coming forward.
“When I was telling people they were delet-
ing emails, they were like, ‘Oh, no, they’re not
deleting emails,’” Shannon recalled. “Nobody
believed me at first, they said that can’t be go-
ing on. They made it seem like I was a bitter
employee that got fired for just cause. So I do
feel vindicated.”
Joe Guillen has been covering city govern-
ance and development issues for the newspa-
per since 2013. He has covered Detroit city hall
and been a member of the investigations team.
Contact him at 313-222-6678 or jguillen@free-
press.com.
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na-
tive, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Journal-
ists. She was recently named an Ida B. Wells
Fellow, a national investigative reporting fel-
lowship. Contact her at kstafford@
freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
4A ❚ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Metro
State budget impasse could drag on
Deal unlikely by December
with no vote in added session
Paul Egan Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
LANSING – The state House is not expected
to vote or take attendance at its session
Wednesday before breaking for hunting sea-
son and Thanksgiving, making a resolution be-
fore December of the impasse over the 2020
Third tine’s the charm —
U.P. buck sports 3 antlers
Frank Witsil
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
A former state representative from the Up-
per Peninsula, Steve Lindberg, spied a three-
antlered deer this weekend and posted photos
to his Facebook page.
“Five days before rifle season for Whitetail
Deer and look who I get to see, along with his
girlfriend,” the retiree wrote. “A three antlered,
nine or twelve point buck (depending if you
want to count the two little tines on the right
antler, and the small tine on the left antler).”
It was a rare sighting. Lindberg added he’d
never seen such an animal before.
An amateur photographer who lives in Mar-
quette, Lindberg said he decided after a life-
time of hunting, he’d rather shoot deer with a
camera than a gun. The 75-year-old posts a
photo a day to social media, and it’s usually
something from nature because it’s a lot like
hunting.
Birds, he said, are his favorite subjects, al-
though, he added, they are difficult to photo-
graph.
“I’d always been interested in photography
and cameras,” said Lindberg, who retired from
the state Legislature in 2012. “I made a New
Year’s resolution in 2013. I said, ‘I’m going to
put a picture a day on Facebook.’ ”
He did it for a year — and has been doing it
ever since.
After he posted the deer photo, commenters
offered a string of bad puns, jokes, praise and
skepticism:
“Nice rack man!”
“A tricorn!”
“Probably a victim of antler shaming.”
Many commenters gushed over the photo —
“Impressive stag,” “One of a kind for sure,”
“Beautiful buck!” — and Lindberg’s photogra-
phy skills: “You are a true hunter, doing it for
the intrinsic joy, rather than for the kill thrill.”
One person, however, wanted to know
whether it was real or just photo manipulation.
Lindberg says the photos are authentic. He
said he watched the deer for many hours on
Saturday. It was with a small doe and seemed
to not want him to get too close to her. But by
Sunday, it had vanished from the area.
A large-animal veterinarian who examined
the images also believes that they are authen-
tic.
“This buck looks totally healthy, and the
buck is normal,” said Dr. Steve Edwards of La-
keview Animal Clinic in Lakeview. “A normal,
See 3 ANTLERS, Page 5A
Attorney General warrant sought officials’ emails
Deletion of Make Your Date
messages under investigation
Joe Guillen and Kat Stafford Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
When the Michigan Attorney General’s Of-
fice executed a search warrant on the City of
Detroit last week, it sought voluminous rec-
ords from email accounts for Mayor Mike Dug-
gan, his chief of staff Alexis Wiley and other
city officials.
The search was conducted on Friday as part
of a criminal investigation into the deletion of
city emails involving Make Your Date, a local
prenatal care program run by a woman with
close ties to Duggan.
The search warrant sought the following
records from the city’s Innovation and Tech-
budget less likely.
However, the House will add one additional
session day on Wednesday, Nov. 20, and if a
deal is reached before then between Democrat-
ic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republican leg-
islative leaders, it could be voted on that day,
said Gideon D’Assandro, a spokesman for
House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering.
The developments come as affected groups
are becoming more vocal about funds that
were cut from a wide range of programs as a
result of 147 line-item vetoes, totaling close to
Steve Lindberg, a former state representative, spied a three-antlered deer in Marquette and
posted it to his Facebook page. STEVE LINDBERG
... Nessel’s criminal division has
been investigating allegations
that city employees were ordered
to delete government emails ...
nology Department:
“Any and all records, electronic records,
electronic mail (email), physical items, docu-
ments, with electronic document attachments
including photographs or videotapes … for any
and all City of Detroit email accounts belong-
ing to Michael Duggan, Alexis Wiley, Ryan Frie-
drichs, Sirene Abou-Chakra, Monique Phillips
and Claire Huttenlocher, between the dates of
1/01/2014 and 11/7/2019.”
The Attorney General’s Office’s search also
“I’m hopeful ... they’ll come back
and get serious and send
something to my desk
posthaste.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
included backup files, archived files and any
related files from past emails services the city
used, according to the search warrant.
Friedrichs, Abou-Chakra, Phillips and Hut-
tenlocher work in the city’s Office of Develop-
ment and Grants and were involved in deleting
more than 200 pages of city emails tied to
Make Your Date, according to an city inspector
general’s report released last month. Inspector
General Ellen Ha recommended discipline for
Wiley and the other city officials complicit in
carrying out her orders to delete the emails.
Duggan downplayed the findings and insisted
there is no need for discipline for those staffers.
The Free Press obtained a copy of the search
warrant from A Felon’s Crusade for Equality,
Honesty and Truth, an organization run by
activist Robert Davis. Davis’ organization
See EMAILS, Page 5A
$1 billion, exercised by Whitmer in an effort to
get the GOP-controlled Legislature to renegoti-
ate key parts of the budget.
Most likely, “it’s going to be a few weeks be-
fore we know if we’re going to get a supplemen-
tal done,” Whitmer said. “I’m concerned about
it. We’re almost a quarter way into the fiscal
year at that juncture and (affected groups and
agencies) are going to be feeling it.”
But Whitmer said the budget lawmakers
See BUDGET, Page 5A
Ex-members
criticize
‘misguided’
WSU board
12 sign statement calling
for end to personal attacks
David Jesse
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
A dozen former Wayne State University
board members want the current board to
stop its infighting and return to running
Wayne State.
The former board members also supported
embattled university President Roy Wilson
staying at the university.
“The undersigned are former members of
the Board of Governors of Wayne State Uni-
versity, with 127 years of combined service,”
the statement reads. “We write in our individ-
ual capacities to express our dismay at the ac-
tions of four current board members in clam-
oring for the ouster of Dr. M. Roy Wilson as
WSU’s president.
“Their misguided actions
are inflicting incalculable harm
on a great university whose
stability and success are so vi-
tal to the educational and eco-
nomic future of Southeast
Wilson Michigan.
“Reasonable minds can dis-
agree on substantive issues that come before
the board, but elevating those disagreements
to personal attacks on the president reflect
badly on the entire institution. Creating a tox-
ic environment is hardly conducive to attract-
ing top-flight administrators, faculty mem-
bers, and researchers to Wayne State.
“Having just celebrated its 150th anniver-
sary, WSU has never been so greatly valued
by its students, alumni, donors, friends and
the broader community. Unless the unwar-
ranted attacks being carried on by certain
board members stop immediately, the future
of this great university is likely to be irrepara-
bly damaged.”
The statement is signed by Vernice Antho-
ny, Wayne State governor, 1995-1998; Eugene
Driker, governor, 2002-2014; Diane Dunas-
kiss, governor, 1995-2018; Michael Einheuser,
governor, 1975-1990; Elizabeth Hardy,
governor, 1991-2006; Paul Hillegonds, gover-
nor, 2002-2004; Denise Lewis, governor,
See WAYNE STATE, Page 5A
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s
office executed a search warrant for
voluminous records from email accounts for
City of Detroit officials. KATHLEEN GALLIGAN/DFP
 FREEP.COM ❚ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 ❚ 5A

Metro

Budget An end to the impasse appeared close

Continued from Page 4A
sent her was “fatally flawed” and needs to be
reworked. “They’ve shortchanged a lot of the
departments and we’re feeling it as well,” she
said.
The House added the Wednesday session
last week in case a dispute between Whitmer
and the Legislature was resolved.
But on Tuesday, the House announced no
votes or attendance are planned Wednesday,
before the chamber goes on break, though the
Nov. 20 meeting date will also be added. The
Senate was meeting Tuesday and Wednesday
before going on break until Dec. 3.
The Michigan Association of Public School
Academies, representing charter schools,
plans a Wednesday morning news confer-
Detroit Inspector General Ellen Ha appeared before the Detroit City Council, stressing how ence outside Whitmer’s office to protest one
important it was that there be accountability among government officials. MANDI WRIGHT/DFP of the vetoes, which killed a $240-per-pupil
increase proposed for charter schools.
On Monday, Air Force veteran Stephanie
Thursday morning after Whitmer and Chat-
field reportedly agreed in principle to a budget
deal, without making details public. But talks
fell apart after Senate Majority Leader Mike
Shirkey, R-Clarklake, said he wants Whitmer to
sign a bill that will restrict the powers of the
State Administrative Board — currently dom-
inated by Democratic elected officials and gu-
bernatorial appointees — to move funds within
departments without legislative approval.
Whitmer has repeatedly said she will not
sign any bill that limits her powers or those of
future governors.
Whitmer said she used vetoes to cut
$947 million and used the State Administra-
tive Board to shift more than $600 million be-
cause lawmakers sent her a budget without her
input during the final stages. She said the bud-
get endangers health and safety by underfund-
ing certain prison programs and by not provid-
ing money to help Medicaid recipients comply
with new work requirements, among other
problems.
The Pure Michigan tourism promotion cam-

Emails about additional city resources provided to

Continued from Page 4A
obtained the warrant through a Michigan Free-
dom of Information Act request dated Nov. 8.
The Free Press also submitted a FOIA re-
quest Tuesday for the search warrant but has
not received a reply from the city.
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office de-
clined to comment.
For several months, Nessel’s criminal divi-
sion has been investigating allegations that
city employees were ordered to delete govern-
ment emails to hide the city’s support of the
Make Your Date prenatal care program.
The Detroit Inspector General launched its
investigation into Make Your Date in April fol-
lowing a Free Press report about Duggan’s rela-
tionship with Make Your Date and its director,
Dr. Sonia Hassan. Duggan worked with Wayne
State University officials to create the program,
handpicked Hassan to lead the initiative and
ordered city staff to raise money for Make Your
Date. The city also directed more than
$358,000 in federal grants to the program.
Ha’s report found Duggan gave Make Your
Date preferential treatment. Her report con-
firmed details in numerous Free Press investi-
gative reports and included new information
Make Your Date. General fund money was
earmarked for Lyft rides for Make Your Date
participants and the city’s health department
was expected to perform an inordinate
amount of work for the program. Workers in
the department felt pressured by the mayor’s
office to recruit women to Make Your Date,
the OIG found.
Days later, Ha appeared before the Detroit
City Council to debrief officials on the major
findings of the report, stressing how impor-
tant it was that there be accountability
among government staff and officials.
Joe Guillen has been covering city govern-
ance and development issues for the newspa-
per since 2013. He has covered Detroit city
hall, been a member of the investigations
team and previously worked at The (Cleve-
land) Plain Dealer covering county and state
government. Contact him at 313-222-6678 or
jguillen@freepress.com.
Kat Stafford is the Detroit government
watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering
city issues and the community. A Detroit na-
tive, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit
chapter of the Society of Professional Jour-
nalists. She was recently named an Ida B.
Wells Fellow, a national investigative report-
ing fellowship. Contact her at kstafford@free-
press.com or 313-223-4759.
Zarb, who was co-chair of the Veterans for
Whitmer group in the 2018 election cam-
paign, autism support, rural policing and hos-
pitals, and grants to counties in lieu of taxes for
paign, said on the Michigan Radio program state-owned land are among other programs
“Stateside” that two programs for veterans cut as a result of the vetoes.
that would be cut as a result of the vetoes are Whitmer said the state might have to close
“critical,” and more important than some oth- up to two prisons if the budget is left in the
er state-funded veteran programs. Those form passed by the Legislature.
programs are grants to counties that help vet- “I’m hopeful that over the next couple of
erans access federal programs and the Buddy weeks, while they’re on their hunting and holi-
to Buddy program through the University of day break, that they’ll come back and get seri-
Michigan, through which veterans with PTSD ous and send something to my desk post-
can turn to other veterans for help. haste.”
3 antlers
Continued from Page 4A
healthy, good-looking buck. But, yes, there
are two antlers coming out one side. Of
course, these are antlers — not horns.”
What probably happened, he said, is either
as an embryo, before the deer was born, the
bud that leads to an antler’s growth, separat-
ed into two; or the bud was damaged some-
how later in life causing it to split.
Either way, he said, it’s a rare animal and
the antlers will grow back this way.
Randi Meyerson, the deputy chief life sci-
ences officer with the Detroit Zoo, added that Dr. Steve Edwards of Lakeview Animal Clinic
the deer is an oddity, but there’s likely no in Lakeview said the three-antlered buck
harm in hunting it. looks healthy despite the abnormal antler
Edwards agreed, adding that the meat growth. STEVE LINDBERG
would be safe to eat, and it would make a good
trophy.
“I’ve never seen one. I’ve never heard of added. “I’d say it’s probably a one-in-a-million
one,” Edwards, who had been a vet for 30 thing.”
years and is a committee chairman of the Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwit-
Michigan Veterinary Medical Association, sil@freepress.com.

Wayne State the recent Heart of Detroit scholarship that

Continued from Page 4A
1993-2000; Paul Massaron, governor, 2001-
2016; Robert H. Naftaly, governor, 1987-1994;
David Nicholson, governor, 2013-2018; Gary
Pollard, governor, 2009-2016; Michael T. Tim-
mis, governor, 1991-1996.
The statement comes after months of in-
fighting hit its peak with an attempt earlier
this month to fire Wilson by four board mem-
bers who have been battling him.
That vote took place when Wayne State’s
board held a health affairs subcommittee
meeting in early November. Like other Michi-
gan universities, that meeting was held be-
hind closed doors. Michigan law allows Mich-
igan’s public universities to meet behind
closed doors except in “formal” sessions,
which have strict public notification require-
ments.
Because there’s been so much going on
with the medical school, physician practice
groups and other related issues, the entire
board — except Bryan Barnhill, who was out
of town — attended.
At the end of the meeting, board chair-
woman Kim Trent opened a discussion about
gives free tuition to high school graduates in
the city of Detroit. When it was announced,
board members who have been fighting Wilson
for the past year said they were not briefed
about the move and Wilson was overstepping
his authority.
During that portion of the meeting, Michael
Busuito, the leader of the anti-Wilson group,
made a motion to fire Wilson.
Trent and fellow board members Marilyn
Kelly and Mark Gaffney left the meeting then.
They, along with Barnhill, have been suppor-
tive of Wilson.
Board bylaws say: “A quorum for business
shall be five members of the board. Whenever
any vacancy shall occur in the Board of Gover-
nors by reason of death, resignation or other-
wise, a quorum for the transaction of business
shall be a majority of the members of the board
then in office. Unless otherwise required by law
or by these bylaws, action requires a majority
vote of the members in attendance at a duly
constituted meeting.”
Michigan’s attorney general has been asked
to weigh in on whether the meeting was legal
and the vote binding. That review is ongoing.
Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or
djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter:
@reporterdavidj

OLHSA announces the availability of funds to provide

Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF).
OLHSA receives federal funds for SSVF through
Veteran Affairs and is seeking a subcontractor to
provide supportive services to approved homeless and/
or near homeless Veterans to promote housing stability
in Macomb and Lapeer counties. Awards made
for supportive services grants will fund operations
beginning February 1, 2020 and lasting until September
30, 2020, with opportunities for extension. The RFP
is posted at www.olhsa.org. Non-profit organizations,
units of government, and consumer cooperatives are
eligible to apply and proposals must be submitted
by December 6, 2019. Questions can be directed to
heatherz@olhsa.org
DF-0000354145
Detroit Free Press ❚ SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020 ❚ 17A

Opinion From The Detroit News

❚ Jacques: Put a lid on cancel culture
in 2020. 26A

4 senators
can rescue
impeachment
process
Chris Truax
USA Today Contributor

President Donald Trump is right when he

BILL CAMPLING/USA TODAY NETWORK
claims that impeachment is a partisan farce.
Or at least he will be if Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell gets his way.
Many Republican Senate leaders have
made it crystal clear that they have no inten-
tion of taking the impeachment process seri-
ously. McConnell has declared that he will
run the Senate trial “in total coordination”
with the White House, while Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham ad-

How the Free Press pursued

mits, “I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair ju-
ror here.” One of the key talking points
Trump’s defenders have settled on is that im-
peachment is a “political exercise,” and that

two big stories, and why

Peter Bhatia
Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY NETWORK
You can call the Free Press traditional media, main-
stream media or legacy press: The labels don’t matter much.
Fact is, the people I work with here are doing profoundly
important work and holding powerful institutions account-
able.
It was this motivation — doing good for the public — that
drew me to journalism nearly 50 years ago. In 2020, the Free
Press will continue to uphold that tradition and responsibil-
ity. You’ll see a column later this month outlining our specif-
ic goals for the year.
Today, I’m writing more to offer insight on how we do
what we do and why, and the obstacles we have to over-
come in pursuit of truth-telling. Much of the bad press the
legacy media receives these days washes away when you
look at the care we take in our reporting, our persistence in
getting to the bottom of stories, and our relentless pursuit of
public records.
This is not to say all the criticism is without merit. No one
here disputes we have fewer resources available to get after
the news. Some governments, communities and institu-
tions get less coverage from us today than they did in the
past, and we regret that.
But as the largest and most-experienced news organiza-
tion in Michigan, we will never back off tackling tough sto-
ries that are in the public interest.
To that end, and with the help of my colleagues Randy
Essex, who has run the coverage of the Ford defective trans-
mission stories this past year, and Mark Rochester, who
leads the coverage of the Make Your Date investigations in-
See BHATIA, Page 18A
rank partisanship is par for the course.
This is both dead wrong and a self-fulfill-
ing prophecy.
Yes, impeachment is a political exercise if
senators decide to turn it into one. Under this
jaundiced view, presidents can smash any
norm and violate any law so long as they have
34 loyal Senate partisans who think they have
taken an oath to defend the president rather
than the Constitution.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,
and that’s certainly not the way the Constitu-
tion says it works. In order to sit in judgment
on Trump’s impeachment trial, the Constitu-
tion requires that each senator take a special
oath when the trial begins. The language,
composed by the Senate, has remained large-
ly unchanged since the earliest days of the re-
public: “I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the
case may be) that in all things appertaining to
the trial of the impeachment of Donald John
Trump, president of the United States, now
pending, I will do impartial justice according
to the Constitution and laws: So help me
God,” senators will swear when Trump’s trial
begins.
“Impartial justice according to the Consti-
tution and laws” is the exact opposite of treat-
ing an impeachment trial as a political exer-

For some, hazards of war with Iran are immediate
Your Turn
Mary Turfah
Guest columnist
The hardest part about living here is the
complacency I am expected to feign outside
the walls of my home.
Inside, I am glued to the Arabic news all
morning. This, and Twitter: I refresh my feed
like clockwork. I am waiting to see what is
next.
Last night the United States assassinated
Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC’s) Quds
Force, and a key military figure in the Middle
East.
On my Twitter timeline, the hashtag
#NoWarWithIran is trending. I read this and
find myself saying aloud — to the world, and to
no one— It’s too late. Under international law,
Qassem Soleimani’s assassination constitutes
an unambiguous act of war , as he was an Ira-
nian state actor. Now we all wait to see how
Iran chooses to respond.
Americans an ocean away may not feel the
consequences of this death, except perhaps in
the rise of the cost of oil, or a surge in the price
of defense industry stocks.
But consequences there will be.
I am a student on my winter holiday break,
and I decide to head to a coffee shop to work on
a memoir I am ghost-writing. Life goes on, I tell
myself.
The barista greets me with a big smile:
“How are you? How’s your new year so far?”
See IRAN, Page 18A
cise or having the Senate majority leader co-
ordinate with the White House to ensure that
impeachment causes the president as little
inconvenience as possible.
Despite McConnell’s open rejection of his
constitutional duties, there is hope. There
has been so much talk in the news media
about what he will and won’t allow that you
can be forgiven for having gotten the idea that
McConnell can single-handedly dictate the
course of the impeachment trial.
But Republicans have just 53 of 100 sena-
tors. That means it would only take four of
them to turn what’s looking like an embar-
rassing partisan stitch-up giving hope and
See IMPEACHMENT, Page 18A
18A ❚ SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020 ❚ DETROIT FREE PRESS
Opinion
Tim Gruber Peter Bhatia
President, Detroit Free Press Editor, Vice President
Anjanette Delgado Brian Dickerson
Randy Essex Editorial Page Editor
James G. Hill
Mark J. Rochester Jewel Gopwani
Senior Editors Community Engagement Director
Bhatia
Continued from Page 17A
volving Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s admini-
stration, here is more detail and insight into
how we do our work.
Ford’s defective transmissions
Izzy Nelson, a community engagement co-
ordinator for the Outward Bound School in
Philadelphia, bought a used 2014 Ford Fiesta
last April because his mom, who has breast
cancer, had been taking public transit across
town to her treatment appointments.
“Fast forward to today, and I was unable to
drive her to her appointment because of the
transmission,” he wrote to the Free Press on
Dec. 6. “I’ve taken it to the mechanics, and they
all estimate that I’ll have to spend $2,500-
$3,000 for a transmission. We do NOT have
that kind of money.”
The Free Press has received hundreds of
calls and emails like this one from Ford Focus
and Fiesta owners across America since re-
porter Phoebe Wall Howard started writing
about the cars’ defective transmissions in May.
In July, we showed that Ford knew the trans-
missions were defective before it put the cars
on the market in 2010. Then, a year and a half
later, the company rejected a preliminary deci-
sion to scrap the transmissions that would
have been very expensive.
Ford has told drivers that they don’t under-
stand how the vehicles are supposed to feel
when they’re driven. It has extended the war-
ranty on transmission parts three times —
most recently just a month after our July re-
port, though it claimed that action had nothing
at all to do with our story.
It has told the nation’s traffic safety regula-
tors that it’s not hazardous when the cars lurch
forward unpredictably or lose acceleration on
the highway. Ford has racked up more than
$3 billion in warranty costs and spent untold
millions more fighting lawsuits, hoping to cov-
er its liability to almost all the owners with a
relatively cheap $35 million class-action set-
tlement that’s under review for fairness.
After our July report, Ford engineers and
others involved reached out to Howard. One
mailed a thick packet of documents. Others
called and emailed, saying they felt guilty
about their role, about staying silent when they
Iran
Continued from Page 17A
Do you know what your government — our
government — just did? I want to blurt. Maybe
he doesn’t know. Not his fault, I tell myself. Not
his issue.
I find myself wishing I were someplace else,
maybe Lebanon, where my parents were born
and where many of my family members still re-
side. Where I know the stranger in front of me
would read my eyes and recognize — even
share — the anxiety I feel. That Lebanese
stranger would cut the small talk and ask what
I think will happen next, and he would nod
when I admit I have no idea. I wish today I were
surrounded by people for whom compassion
fatigue is less of an option.
But here I am, in the suburbs of Detroit. So I
smile back at the barista . “So far, so okay,” I say.
I’ve experienced loss and its anticipation,
and I know life goes on. But not like this. Not
Impeachment
Continued from Page 17A
comfort to future misbehaving presidents into
a master class on constitutional and civic duty
that will deter that misbehavior as long as our
Constitution exists.
These senators need to do two simple
things: First, make it clear that they are in favor
of an open and fair trial where each side may
present the evidence and witnesses necessary
to prove its case. Second, commit to upholding
the impeachment rulings of Chief Justice John
Roberts, who will be presiding over Trump’s
trial. While the Senate can vote to override his
rulings, that should not happen simply if the
president doesn’t like them and there are 53
The Editorial Board
Detroit Free Press
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
160 W. Fort Street, Detroit, MI 48226
letters@freepress.com
knew the products wouldn’t work.
The Free Press was finally getting the truth
out, they said, so they wanted the public to
know more. “My hands are dirty,” one said.
They described an atmosphere of fear where
internal politics led to silence and, in one docu-
mented instance, downgrading a risk assess-
ment.
When Ford reported third-quarter earnings
hit by warranty costs, Ford CEO Jim Hackett
said the company was feeling “downstream
impact of some products designed earlier in
the decade.” He said his team “made a deci-
sion” that “the company would stand behind
the performance of the products. This is a big
Ford commitment, to make sure no one was
suffering through that product challenge. I feel
really good that we’ve got a handle on that.”
But the evidence revealed by Howard’s re-
porting suggests otherwise. The Free Press
hears regularly from people like Izzy, whose Fo-
cuses and Fiestas are just past the 100,000-
mile warranty, or who have had work done five,
six or 12 times and continue to have problems.
Ford fought the story.
It argued that the Free Press was exaggerat-
ing problems, at one point issuing a statement
with an assertion contradicted in its own
emails. It excluded Howard from some events,
and when she attended, assigned public rela-
tions staffers to remain at her side at all times
while other journalists were allowed to move
about freely. On one occasion, Ford staffers
stood between her and Ford executives at a
press event, apparently to prevent her from ask-
ing questions. On another occasion, Ford left
Howard waiting in the lobby of world headquar-
ters until minutes before a financial announce-
ment while all other reporters had been seated
and set up. A Ford staffer later apologized pri-
vately to Howard for the company’s treatment.
Ford also took the extraordinary step of
sending a top North America quality executive
to the Flint home of a woman featured in a Free
Press video. Surprised to discover that the
woman invited Howard to her home, the engi-
neer, noting that she had quoted his affidavit in
the July story, squeezed Howard’s hand so
hard while shaking it that her hand was swol-
len more than 24 hours later. An urgent-care
physician diagnosed a soft-tissue injury and
bandaged the hand.
Sources set up special email accounts to
correspond with Howard , telling her that their
company communications were being moni-
tored to spot contacts with her. A global com-
This photo released by the Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office shows a burning vehicle at the
Baghdad International Airport following an airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq. The Pentagon said that
the U.S. military has killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, at the
direction of President Donald Trump. IRAQI PRIME MINISTER PRESS OFFICE VIA AP
when your cousin’s life, or your grandpa’s, is at
stake. And not when the country on your pass-
port, the government to which you pay your
taxes, is the reason.
On cable news, commentators call the deci-
Republicans in the Senate.
Holding a proper trial — and demanding
that senators live up to the oath they will take
— is far more important than whether Trump is
convicted and removed from office. The idea
that holding a proper Senate trial will encour-
age “frivolous” impeachments whenever the
House is controlled by the other party, as
McConnell has claimed, is absurd. A proper
trial requires both sides to put their cards on
the table so everyone, including voters, can see
what they’ve got.
The prospect of such a proceeding will strike
terror in the heart of whichever side is trying to
bluff it out. That encourages good behavior, not
bad. President Richard Nixon resigned because
he knew the Senate would hold a full trial and
senators would honor the oath they had taken
rather than their party loyalties.
Free Press editorials reflect the consensus of our editorial board.
Brian Dickerson 313-222-6584
Jewel Gopwani 313-223-4550
Nancy Kaffer 313-222-6585
Mike Thompson 313-222-6616
munications staffer attacked us on social
media. Ford insisted we were just doing the
bidding of lawyers for car owners suing the
company, when in fact we were consistently
quoting from Ford’s own internal documents.
With each new disclosure, we gave Ford the
opportunity to respond in detail before we
published. That at times led to tensions be-
tween the company and us. In the end, we al-
lowed Ford the time it wanted to comment,
sometimes delaying publication for days,
though company spokespeople argued it was
not enough.
Howard continues to hear from distraught
owners around the country — to date more
than 400. Her final story of the year further
documented their frustration. She also broke
the news that the U.S. Department of Justice is
investigating Ford’s conduct.
Make Your Date
Reporters Kat Stafford and Joe Guillen en-
countered similar difficulties the past year dur-
ing their ongoing investigation of conflict of in-
terest allegations concerning Detroit Mayor
Mike Duggan.
The mayor and high-profile local physician
Sonia Hassan had been videotaped after work-
ing hours at a suburban Detroit home by a pri-
vate investigator.We initially declined oppor-
tunities to publish that videotape, because we
had no desire to intrude on the mayor’s per-
sonal life. Then our reporters established that
Duggan had used his influence to get Wayne
State University officials to create a nonprofit
to address infant mortality in Detroit, then or-
dered high-ranking city officials to conduct
fundraising efforts for the program, whose di-
rector is Hassan.
The key to the reporters’ investigation was
an email document, obtained from one of sev-
eral Freedom of Information Act requests by
the Free Press to the city, that contained what
the city claimed was a “corrupted file.” We in-
sisted that officials recover the so-called cor-
rupted file or be in violation of the open-rec-
ords statute. The recovered file the city eventu-
ally produced contained correspondence
showing the mayor had ordered fundraising
support for Hassan’s program. Our reporters
also discovered that the city had also provided
$358,000 in grant funding to the program, as
well as other direct funding.
We published the results of our first investi-
gation last April, focusing on how the mayor
sion to kill Soliemani a ‘miscalculation.’ But hu-
man life is not a decimal place error. I am wor-
ried for my family, for my grandpa’s home, for
the roses my grandmother planted decades be-
fore her death, roses my dad waits to smell ev-
No president should be removed just be-
cause one party has 67 Senate votes, but nor
should any president be acquitted just because
one party has 34. If impeachment is to fulfill its
constitutional purpose as the ultimate check
and balance, it must be about principles, not
politics.
And a thorough, serious, impartial process
is more important than any particular result.
Justice must not only be done, it also must be
seen to be done.
Even if Trump’s acquittal by the Senate is a
foregone conclusion, he and his supporters
should not be allowed to make a mockery of the
impeachment trial.
All it takes is four Republican senators will-
ing to honor their oath to “do impartial justice.”
If they ultimately decide that Trump’s conduct
did not rise to the level of an impeachable of-
bdickerson@freepress.com
jgopwani@freepress.com
nkaffer@freepress.com
thompson@freepress.com
had used his power and influence to set Hassan
up to lead the nonprofit. That week, Ellen Ha,
of the Detroit Office of Inspector General, an-
nounced her own investigation to determine
whether the Make Your Date nonprofit re-
ceived preferential treatment from the city.
City officials made numerous attempts to
hinder and discredit our investigation. They
ordered city employees not to talk to our re-
porters, made false statements about the city’s
fundraising efforts and withheld incriminating
documents.
The mayor’s staffers also have flouted our
Michigan Freedom of Information Act requests
related to Make Your Date and the OIG investi-
gation. The most blatant example is an August
open records request the Free Press submitted
for “any and all documents collected (and cre-
ated) by the Office of Inspector General in the
course of its investigation into the Make Your
Date program/nonprofit, including, but not
limited to, emails, text messages, financial rec-
ords, schedules and written directives.”
Weeks later, Jack Dietrich, the city’s FOIA
coordinator, told us the city would demand
$222,667 to release more than 400,000 pages
of documents responsive to the request. Die-
trich has ignored our repeated requests that he
provide an explanation for the demanded fee,
as the law requires.
Alexis Wiley, Duggan’s chief of staff, abused
her authority by twice ordering city staff to de-
lete emails related to the Make Your Date pro-
gram. The Oct. 21 OIG report confirmed the
newspaper’s reporting and identified Wiley as
the person who issued the deletion orders, rec-
ommending that she and other employees in-
volved be disciplined.
City administrative staff have made numer-
ous false statements regarding the Make Your
Date program, while disseminating disparag-
ing statements about factual reporting by the
Free Press via social media. Again, the OIG re-
port confirmed the reporting.
To read the complete investigation, go to
freep.com.
The Michigan Attorney General’s criminal
investigation into Make Your Date is ongoing.
As is ours.
Investigative reporting in the public interest
remains at the core of journalism. Look for
more of it from the Free Press in 2020. We are
grateful for your support and our shared com-
mitment to Detroit and Michigan.
Peter Bhatia is the Editor of the Free Press.
Contact him at pbhatia@freepress.com
ery summer.
And I am worried for my fellow American
citizens, who seem to be more concerned about
an imaginary attack on American soil or a
#WWIII (another trending hashtag) than
about the very immediate cost of this escala-
tion. Iraqis and Iranians, whose guilt is no
more real than Saddam’s weapons of mass de-
struction, will die.Have been dying.
I am worried because unless we understand
the reality of others’ suffering, unless we shake
off this collective numbness that blankets our
senses after every drone strike, every bombing,
every ground invasion, unless we learn to think
beyond the edges of our national selves, we
cannot adequately resist these endless wars.—
The hashtag #NoWarWithIran means noth-
ing if we do not open ourselves to understand-
ing what war means for those already living it.
Mary Turfah grew up in Dearborn.She is
concurrently pursuing a medical degree at the
University of Michigan Medical School and a
master’s degree in Middle Eastern, South Asian
and African Studies at Columbia University..
fense, that will be their call to make. But they
cannot honor that oath without a process that
allows the evidence and the witnesses to be
heard.
We know that Trump’s impeachment trial
will be historic. But we don’t know whether it
will be remembered as the day a handful of
senators stepped up to impose integrity and
the rule of law, or the day American exception-
alism jumped the shark once and for all. In the
movies, this is the moment when the good guys
show up at the last minute and save the day.
But this is no movie, and there will be no deus
ex machina — just 53 Republican senators and
their consciences.
Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San
Diego, is an adviser to Republicans for the Rule
of Law and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of
Contributors.